The Aboriginal Arts Collective of Canada received $25,000 from the fund and president Dawn Setford said she used the money to hold a long-planned conference to teach about 200 Indigenous women various artistic and cultural practices such as porcupine quilling and basketry. | NATIONAL POST | CANADIAN PRESS

Those types of traditional teachings were lost in some families, she said, because of residential schools or the ’60s Scoop that removed Indigenous children from their homes.

Setford now doubts she will be able to get other sources of funding to hold another conference.

“As Indigenous women we were just getting there, to the point where people wanted to learn about us … and we’re just at that point where we’re confident enough, we feel safe enough and proud enough to start sharing,” she said. “I think these kind of governmental movements renew in us the feelings that we’re not valuable, that we’re not equal again.”