Ulnooweg has been providing business services to the Indigenous communities in Atlantic Canada since 1985. With representatives in New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador and Nova Scotia, we offer convenient, personalized service to our clients to help them succeed.
For more than three decades, Ulnooweg has been instrumental in opening up new opportunities for Atlantic Indigenous businesses and community enterprises. For many communities, this assistance has been transformative, as evidenced by their progress and dynamism today.
To address the significant disparities that existed in Indigenous communities, Ulnooweg was created thirty-nine years ago, to “promote the social and economic welfare” of Indigenous individuals and communities in Atlantic Canada.
Three main areas of effort were identified:
Underlying these ambitious objectives was a simple and clear vision, encapsulated in the very choice of our name and enshrined in the following mission:
“pursuing economic participation ‘on our terms’, in service of our people, our communities and our culture, and ensuring that ‘no one is left behind’.”
The founding of this dynamic and evolving organization was based on a conscious decision to go beyond conventional economic development wisdom, which considers business development and economic integration as ends in themselves. For Indigenous communities, this conventional approach carries the risk of assimilation and the risk of increased inequality within and between communities; a situation that gave rise to the need to do things differently.
It was also by conscious choice that Ulnooweg’s Board of Directors invested in research, exploration, and internal capacity development to expand beyond the delivery of economic support programs designed for non-Indigenous persons and communities.
From the beginning, the goal has always been to offer a holistic response tailored to the needs and aspirations of our people and communities in collaboration with the widest possible array of public and private, charitable and profit-oriented programs, agencies, corporations, and partners.
After 39 years, we are proud to report that this was a solid plan and a sound investment on which the return has been both significant and noteworthy. Ulnooweg has now evolved into three dynamic organizations working synergistically in the spirit of the vision that gave us our name.
In September of 1985, the Micmac News published the first in a series of articles produced on the Ulnooweg Development Corporation. UDC was described as a “Micmac-controlled, economic development-oriented financial institution. Its two objectives are to provide native businesses with I) Capital financing and 2) Business counselling and training support.”
Since then, we’ve grown quite a bit.
Ulnooweg formed the Ulnooweg Development Group Inc. (UDG) as the first corporation under its umbrella, and UDG is continuing the economic development mandates of that original 1985 corporation. UDG continues to empower the spirit of aboriginal entrepreneurship and community building in Atlantic Canada.
Ulnooweg saw the need for non-business-related funding within community and created the Ulnooweg Indigenous Communities Foundation, a registered charity since 2018 to help strengthen the relationships between Canada’s philanthropic sector and the First Nations communities of Atlantic Canadat
Building on Ulnooweg’s financial education beginnings, the Ulnooweg Education Centre has been a registered charity since 2013, providing financial and strategic educational programs and initiatives to Indigenous communities in career building, science and innovation, forestry, and agriculture, with a holistic approach in health, culture, and language.
The Origin Story of Ulnooweg tells of a time of urgency, when the community gathered to create two institutions that would transform our nation out of the depths of inhumanity. To highlight our resilience in a fight against eradication, our nation would rise and create two origins that would support the preservation of the generational transfer of culture and traditions historically oppressed, but most importantly, it would embody the values of L’nuk.
In its literal translation, Ulnooweg means, “L’nu, it acts like”. But, in translation, it loses its deeper meaning of humanizing an institution so that it exemplifies the values of the peoples it represents. The value of interconnectedness with Kisu’lk (Mother Earth) is a foundational piece of the relationships we strive to build between each other as humanity and beyond. The very nature of this value is expressed in our ways of being and knowing, our culture, our traditions, and our language. To “act like L’nuk”, is to live by these values in very way we do business. To strive to value each other’s humanity and even further, to strive to value all of Kisu’lk’s creations.
Liscombe Lodge Conference, Noel Doucette called a conference… to come to grips effectively with social problems on the reserves.
Liscombe Lodge Conference: Fred Wein, Director, Maritime School of Social Work
Carol Marie Paul of Eskasoni is hired as Ulnooweg’s first Secretary/Bookkeeper
Mary Rose Julian of Eskasoni is hired as Ulnooweg’s first Economic Development Officer
Ulnooweg staff: late Nora Bernard, Chris Googoo, Sacha Labollois, Louis Joe Bernard and late Wayne Abram
Ulnooweg Entrepreneur Award Show Lifetime Achievement recipient late Basil Peters (Millbrook), presented by Board member Chief Everett Martin (Eel River Bar)
Ulnooweg Award Show – Bologna Hunt cast, left to right: Chris Googoo, Todd Hoskin, Chief Misel Joe, late Clara Gloade, Chief Darlene Bernard, Chief Terry Paul, DNR staff.
Anne Hart, formerly with Ulnooweg and current Board member Odelle Pike with Stephenville residents on the opening of Ulnooweg’s new Newfoundland office
Ulnooweg Award Show youth act, “Mi’kmaq Legends” from PEI
Ulnooweg Award Show, Lifetime Achievement Winners; Douglas Denny, Marilyn John, Board member late Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy and Sadie Julien for late JJ Julien
All My Relations - In partnership with six other organizations, 45 youth from all provinces and territories, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
Mekite’tm I Am Proud, which saw Indigenous youth, all elite athletes, attend Lima 2019 Pan American and Parapan American Games in Peru
1.
It originated from a proud Mi’kmaq self-determination objective.
2.
An abiding principle has been to focus on a holistic, multi-layered, systems change effort
3.
As a catalytic force, it has aimed to stimulate and enable individual and collective Indigenous “prosperity and well-being” thinking.
4.
As a force multiplier, the focus has been on providing Mi’kmaq individuals, businesses, and communities with financial instruments and strategic advice to take responsibility for their future.
Over the next five years, we anticipate that the shift will be toward continuing growth of community development and empowerment through philanthropic initiatives and engaging new partners in the quest to release the resilience and resourcefulness of Atlantic Indigenous communities.
