In 2025, EHC deepened its role as a connector across Edmonton's heritage ecosystem. Through member engagement and responsive funding, we supported the relationships, networks, and community-led initiatives that allow heritage to be created, shared, and sustained across the city.
Place-based learning · 4 gatherings in 2025
The FIRE Spotlight Series extends the impact of FIRE Impact Grant projects by creating opportunities for Indigenous thought leaders, Elders, and knowledge holders to share teachings, stories, and practices that deepen understanding of Indigenous histories and relationships to place.
Delivered in collaboration with partners and community knowledge holders, the series reflected EHC's approach to partnerships as infrastructure — where relationships enable the conditions for meaningful heritage work to take place.
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Together, these events combined storytelling, ceremony, and experiential learning, connecting audiences directly with Indigenous heritage practices while reinforcing the role of relationship — between people, communities, and partners — as foundational to how heritage is created, shared, and sustained.
In response to the lack of opportunities for urban Indigenous women to occupy ceremonial roles, Iskwehew Kamik created a dedicated space for ceremony, cultural practice, and community connection.
Held in June 2025, the gathering brought together 30 Indigenous women and non-binary participants, providing access to ceremonial rites of passage and teachings grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems.
More than a single event, Iskwehew Kamik represents a shift in how heritage is supported, moving beyond institutional models toward community-led, relational, and land-based approaches. Participants engaged in shared learning, ceremony, and intergenerational exchange, strengthening cultural continuity and identity.
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In 2025, EHC Research & Policy Lead, Daliso Mwanza was part of a national organizing team of the National Trust's Black Heritage Caucus, a national gathering of Black heritage practitioners from across Canada focused on sharing knowledge, building relationships, and strengthening approaches to preserving Black histories.
During the conference, participants traveled through Nova Scotia, from Halifax to Birchtown, engaging with sites central to Black Loyalist history, guided by community historians whose storytelling revealed both presence and erasure in the landscape. These experiences grounded conversations in lived history and collective memory.
Across the gathering, practitioners identified shared priorities: preserving oral histories, securing sustainable funding, and creating multigenerational spaces for heritage engagement.
"Heritage is discovery and healing."
Through dialogue, storytelling, and cross-cultural exchange, the Caucus strengthened national connections and affirmed that heritage is sustained through relationships — across communities, geographies, and generations.
Growing demand for sector connection
In 2025, EHC expanded its member engagement through Roots & Routes, a series of events designed to bring together heritage practitioners, organizations, and community members through shared experiences and facilitated connection.
The series launched with an inaugural event at the Journey of the Horse exhibit at the Mah Society of Edmonton, where participants engaged in a guided tour and reception. This experience-centered format connected members directly to community-led heritage work, highlighting over a century of Chinese history in Edmonton through immersive storytelling and material culture.
Subsequent events, including a member night hosted at Frank's Community Pub, combined informal networking with opportunities to engage directly with the work of local heritage practitioners. The evening featured presentations from Dan Rose, heritage enthusiast and creator of Arch Madness built heritage bracket, and Jia Jia Yong, Community Archivist with the City of Edmonton Archives, showcasing creative and community-based approaches to documenting and interpreting Edmonton's stories.
Attendance increased throughout the year, with a November event welcoming 50 participants — the highest level of engagement for a member-focused event to date.
More than networking, Roots & Routes functioned as active sector infrastructure, creating conditions for collaboration, surfacing new ideas, and strengthening relationships across Edmonton's heritage community. This work was supported by the implementation of a new CRM platform to better coordinate events, maintain connections, and support ongoing engagement.
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Community Heritage Activation Support (CHAS) provides small-scale, flexible funding to support heritage initiatives led by community organizations and grassroots groups. In 2025, CHAS supported a range of projects across Edmonton, enabling communities to activate heritage in ways that are immediate, locally relevant, and grounded in lived experience.
Funded initiatives included:
CHAS fills a critical gap within EHC's funding ecosystem by supporting:
Through CHAS, EHC continues to expand access to heritage funding and support communities in sharing their stories on their own terms.
| Organization / Recipient | Project | Award |
|---|---|---|
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| Total | $58,905.00 |
Across both member engagement and community investment, EHC's partnership work in 2025 demonstrates that heritage is not created in isolation. It is built through relationships — between organizations, practitioners, and communities.
By investing in both connection and activation across all of our programming, EHC strengthens the conditions for heritage to thrive across Edmonton: collaborative, community-driven, and deeply connected to place.
{/* BHM Initiatives Fund subsection */}Partnerships in Action
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The Black History Month (BHM) Initiatives Fund represents one of EHC's most impactful partnership models, bringing together community leadership, institutional support, and coordinated investment to deliver city-wide heritage outcomes.
Delivered in collaboration with the Africa Centre, Edmonton Community Foundation, and the City of Edmonton, the fund supported 28 community-led initiatives through a total investment of $80,000, selected from 57 applications. These initiatives collectively engaged 5,000+ participants through in-person, virtual, and hybrid programming formats.
More than a funding program, the BHM Initiatives Fund operates as distributed heritage infrastructure. Funded projects included:
Key themes emerging from funded initiatives included cultural preservation, Black excellence, community healing, and intergenerational dialogue — reinforcing heritage as both a site of celebration and a tool for equity and belonging.
Strategic Partners
Academic & Community Collaborators