Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Community Gathers in Ceremony, Healing, and Advocacy

By Chevi Rabbit, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

(ANNews) – A day of ceremony, remembrance, and community healing brought people together under the theme Honouring and Remembering: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, held in recognition of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit people, as well as missing men and boys.

Hosted by Aboriginal Counselling Services of Alberta (ACSA) and Bissell Centre, the gathering created space for reflection, cultural ceremony, and shared stories of loss and resilience. The event also focused on ongoing advocacy, safety, and healing supports within the community.

Held Friday, May 8, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., the program included an Elder-led sacred fire ceremony, a sharing and healing circle, traditional dance, drumming and singing, artwork installations, a Red Dress exhibit, and a remembrance wall honouring lost loved ones. A community lunch and on-site supports were available throughout the day.

Organizers described the gathering as both a ceremony of remembrance and an ongoing call for awareness and action.

Ceremony, Healing, and Community Support

“We are here today to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people, along with men and boys that have been missing,” said Keleigh Squire, Executive Director of Aboriginal Counselling Services of Alberta. “This event is to honour, remember, and uplift those survivors and community members that have been impacted by missing and murdered Indigenous people.”

Squire said ceremony remains central to healing. “I think it’s important to hold these events to offer places of ceremony and healing, to continue to remember and raise awareness to the issue, and to hold space – a space to let that ceremony happen so that we can heal our people,” she said.

“Ceremony helps connect us to the Creator. It helps balance us. It helps guide who we are as individuals, and it helps bring us together as all people who are related.”

She said the gathering reflected both grief and strength in community storytelling.

“We’ve had lots of people share their stories about how they’ve lost loved ones –  sisters, daughters, mothers,” Squire said.

“We did a sharing circle where we really heard stories. We also did a tobacco offering into the sacred fire to help those prayers go up to the Creator.”

Squire also emphasized the importance of sustaining frontline supports. “As director of Aboriginal Counselling Services, we do counselling and domestic violence programs,” she said. “We’re actually raising awareness for our women’s circle safety program that recently lost funding.”

“These community initiatives are funded mostly by government, but sometimes it’s fundraising on our own,” she added. “It’s important to raise awareness for the organizations that are doing this good work because we’re providing healing for people in the community.”

She said the work will continue beyond the event itself. “We plan to continue to do this every year to help these events hold space for ceremony for missing and murdered Indigenous women,” Squire said.

She also stressed collective responsibility. “Missing and murdered Indigenous women and lost loved ones affects us all. It affects us all.”

“We keep telling those stories until people listen,” she said. “Someone knows. Someone knows information. This is how we get to the bottom of things.”

Truth-Telling, Safety, and Lived Experience

Among the keynote speakers was Stephanie Harpe, an international grassroots advocate who led the sharing and healing circle and spoke about lived experience, community safety, and urgent concerns affecting youth and people with disabilities.

“I am here for the honour and remembrance of our murdered and missing, and it’s amazing to be here at this event,” she said. “It’s really about community.”

Harpe said the location carried deep personal meaning tied to her lived experience. “This is the area where I was in addiction. This is the area where my mom was murdered and taken,” she said. “So it’s a very emotional day, but still a lot of strength in telling the truth.”

She said her role focused on awareness and prevention. “I was here speaking as one of their keynotes and just informing everybody of the things that we’ve got to be aware of, how we are targeted peoples, and some safety things we can do,” Harpe said.

She also raised urgent concerns about missing youth and the vulnerability of people with disabilities. “There’s some things happening with our young people. We have a lot of young people missing right now,” she said. “We’ve got a girl that’s also posted on my Facebook. She has special needs. She’s missing from the mall.”

She said community response is already underway. “We’re just trying to fan that out to community right now,” Harpe said. “I have Judas and a bunch of other people fanning that out. I’m really worried about her. I was contacted by Muscogee, so we’re all over that.”

Harpe said the situation reflects broader systemic gaps in protection. “We’ve got to really watch our youth,” she said, “and especially those with disabilities…We’re not doing enough for our people with disabilities.”

She added that advocacy in this area must increase. “Recognizing autism in the First Nations, and thinking about the special needs girl that’s missing from the mall right now, it reminds me of my own family, my own son,” Harpe said.

“We’ve got a lot more to do with our people with disabilities. I just finished training CNIB for the blind, and they took a lot back with them to help keep our community safer.”

“Those with disabilities are 13 times more likely to be taken advantage of, and be assaulted and financially taken advantage of,” she said. “So we need to protect them more, and no one’s doing that. We need to pick it up.”

Organizers encouraged continued support for community programs and healing initiatives. Donations can be made through CanadaHelps to support ongoing cultural, educational, and healing programs delivered in the community.

Donate via CanadaHelps – Aboriginal Counselling Services of Alberta