Sammlung ORG - MCC Menno Wiebe Native Concerns Collection

-Pax worker in Paraguay
-served with Mennonite Pioneer Mission and later Native Ministries (Conference of Mennonites in Canada)
-MCC Canada Native Concerns director, 1973-1997

The work of the Peace and Social Concerns Program began in 1964 with the temporary MCC Binational Peace and Social Concerns Committee (briefly known as the Peace Committee), which was made up of Canadian and American members and based in Akron, PA. Its mandate included peace education, peace witness, labour relations, identifying social concerns, government contact, and informing youth of alternatives to military service. In 1967, the committee hired its first part-time staff person and began to pursue a more active agenda of nonresistance and peacemaking.

In 1974, a Canadian Peace and Social Concerns Committee became independent of the MCC Binational Peace Section, and in 1975 the Committee expanded to include one member from each of the five provincial MCCs. In 1976, a full-time director of MCC Canada’s Peace and Social Concerns was appointed. Over time, new social concerns were identified and adopted as focus areas for the committee’s mandate; these included Native concerns, lobbying through the Ottawa Office, and women’s concerns. Peace education remained the central mandate of the committee.

In the early 1980s, establishment an official MCC Canada department for national programming was underway. Until this time, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee had been an independent department that reported directly to the Executive Office. In 1981 the committee was renamed the Peace and Social Concerns Program and became responsible to the new National Program Department. This enabled it to initiate broader peace education and respond to new challenges surrounding peacemaking both at home and abroad.

From 1981 to 2012, the program remained a part of MCC Canada’s National Program Department as an official program under various names: Peace and Social Concerns (1981-1996), Peace Ministries (1997-2002), and Peace (2003-2012).

By the 2010s, MCC had begun to integrate peacebuilding activities into other program initiatives and the functions of the Peace program shifted towards advocacy work. In 2012, the Peace Program was succeeded by the Ottawa Office Public Engagement Program.

The work of MCC Canada’s Indigenous Neighbours program began in 1974 with the creation of the Native Concerns program. The mandate of the program was to aid and advocate on behalf of Indigenous people and communities in Canada.

Before the program’s official beginnings, MCC had been involved with Indigenous people and communities through membership in ecumenical organizations and MCC Voluntary Service placements. The establishment of the Native Concerns program in 1974 increased MCC Canada’s involvement with Indigenous communities considerably. MCC Canada’s Voluntary Service workers implemented Native Concerns programming in Indigenous Communities, an emphasis on resource development grew through wildlife management, animal husbandry, and gardening programs, and efforts were made to encourage local industries that benefited Indigenous groups.

In 1991, Menno Wiebe, long-time director of the program, proposed that MCC Canada should extend an official apology to the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. This proposal emerged after twenty-plus years of MCC work alongside Indigenous communities through the Native Concerns program and its various activities. The official apology was given at MCC Canada’s annual meeting of 1992; it recognized the colonial legacy of Mennonite settlement in Canada and expressed MCC Canada’s intention to work towards reconciliation. A shift in the mandate of the program followed; greater emphasis was given to justice advocacy in areas of treaty rights, resource rights, and land use, and a commitment to collaborate with Indigenous partners was made.

The originally titled Native Concerns program has also been called Native Issues (1997), Aboriginal Neighbours (1998-2007), Work with Aboriginal People (2007-2008), Work with Indigenous People (2008-2011), and has been called the Indigenous Neighbours program since 2012. MCC Canada’s Indigenous Neighbour’s program continues together with the programs of provincial MCC’s through the Indigenous Neighbours Network. The network strives to build respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and collaborates with Indigenous partners to advocate for positive political, social, and economic change for Indigenous Peoples.