Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard

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Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard is a Canadian and Anishinaabe educator and advocate for Indigenous women's rights. She is Canada's first Indigenous Trudeau Scholar and has served as director of Trent University's First Peoples House of Learning since 2016. [1]

Contents

She is best known for her role as president of the Native Women's Association of Canada from July 2015 to September 2016, during which time she successfully advocated for the launch of a National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. [2] She also served as president the Ontario Native Women's Association from 2003 to 2021. [3] [4]

Career

In 2003, Lavell-Harvard was elected president of the Ontario Native Women's Association in 2003 and served in this role for eighteen years before stepping down in 2021. [5] [3] In July 2015, she became president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, where she fulfilled her promise to see the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls implemented. [4] Since 2016, Lavell-Harvard has served as director of the First Peoples House of Learning at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. [6]

Lavell-Harvard has published several articles and books on the topic of Indigenous mothering practices and the impacts of colonization on Indigenous mothers. [1] In 2003, she was the first Indigenous person to become a Trudeau Scholar. [7] She received an honorary Doctor of Education from Nipissing University in 2016, and in 2018, she was awarded the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers. [8] [9]

In 2025, she began working on a documentary film based on the work of her mother Jeannette Corbiere Lavell. [10]

In October 2025, Lavell-Harvard testified before the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Indigenous Peoples regarding Bill S-2, advocating for the end of the second-generation status cutoff in the Indian Act. [11]

Personal life

Lavell-Harvard is a member of Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. [12] She is the daughter of Indigenous women's rights advocate Jeannette Corbiere Lavell and David Lavell. [13] [8] Lavell-Harvard and her husband have three daughters. [4]

Lavell-Harvard studied education at Queen's University and the University of Western Ontario, focusing on the experiences of Indigenous women and girls in Canadian school systems. [14]

Published works

References

  1. 1 2 Howard, Jessica. "Dr. Dawn Lavell Harvard". Canadian Women's Foundation. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  2. ↑ Canada, Indigenous and Northern Affairs (2016-09-27). "Minister Bennett Thanks Outgoing NWAC President Dawn Lavell-Harvard for her dedication in empowering Indigenous Women". www.canada.ca. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  3. 1 2 ONWA (2021-10-23). "Ontario Native Women's Association elects new board leadership at 50th Annual General Assembly". ONWA. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  4. 1 2 3 "President of Native Women's Association of Canada stepping down". The Globe and Mail. 2016-09-22. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  5. ↑ Hardy, Justin (2021-10-25). "Wisdom: ONWA celebrates 50 years". TBNewsWatch.com. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  6. ↑ "Dawn Lavell-Harvard". www.trentu.ca. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  7. ↑ "D. Memee Lavell-Harvard". Fondation Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  8. 1 2 "Dr. Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard". Nipissing University. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  9. ↑ "Dr. Dawn Memee Lavell-Harvard". The Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  10. ↑ "Documentary film in progress | The Manitoulin Expositor". 2025-12-24. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  11. ↑ Pugliese, Karyn (2025-10-30). "Senators will consider legal amendments to "Indian Status"". APTN News. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  12. ↑ "Dawn Memee Lavell Harvard · Authors · 49th Shelf". 49thshelf.com. Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  13. ↑ Smith, Keith D., ed. (2014). Strange visitors: documents in Indigenous-settler relations in Canada from 1876. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN   978-1-4426-0824-5.
  14. ↑ BSCC (2018-05-09). "Dr Dawn Lavell-Harvard to Receive the 2018 Spirit of Barbra Schlifer Award". Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. Retrieved 2025-12-26.
  15. ↑ "Demeter Press | "Until Our Hearts Are On the Ground:" Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth" . Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  16. ↑ Mothers of the Nations: Indigenous Mothering as Global Resistance, Reclaiming and Recovery. Demeter Press. 2014.
  17. ↑ "Demeter Press | Forever Loved: Exposing the Hidden Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada" . Retrieved 2025-11-20.
  18. ↑ "Demeter Press | Rematriating Justice: Honouring the Lives of Our Indigenous Sisters" . Retrieved 2025-11-20.
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