Heather Milton-Lightening
Canadian Boat to Gaza
Community organizer.
Heather Milton-Lightening has over twenty years of organizing experience from local to international campaigns. She originates from the great plains region of Turtle Island,(North America) and Treaty 4 Territory. She is Nehiyaw, (Cree), Anishinaabe (Saulteaux), Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Lakota/Dakota and Welsh. Heather is a founder of Native Youth Movement-and Aboriginal Youth with Initiative, Inc.- an organization based on the Anishinaabe clan system. Heather worked for the Indigenous Environmental Network for many years as National youth organizer. She is a former member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Youth Advisory, and has extensive experience in lobbying internationally through the United Nations system on Indigenous Peoples rights. She is a former advisory board member on the Funding Exchange Saguaro Fund and Honor the Earth. She helped build the Indigenous People’s Power Project through the Ruckus Society that trains Indigenous communities on non-violent direct action. She currently is the volunteer Director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign.
Quote: “We know our struggles as Indigenous Peoples for the right to exist are inextricably linked. It our greatest strength. It is also our responsibility to support each other. Many Palestinians came to Standing Rock, to show their support. There are Palestinian families living in exile in my home territory of Treaty Four. If there are ways to take action to support the right to return of Palestinian People to their homelands and to support the ongoing struggle of those remaining in the occupied lands of Palestine then that is what we must do.”
We must all support the people in Gaza. It is our duty as human beings.