Last winter, what started as a flurry of emails among four Saskatchewan women grew into a robust grassroots movement, according to Foreign Policy magazine. The women—Jessica Gordon, Sylvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean, and Nina Wilson—were corresponding about a budget bill that would affect land management on the reservations of Canada’s indigenous communities, called First Nations. Believing the bill challenged First Nations’ sovereignty and weakened environmental protections, they organized a meeting of local activists. Gordon called the Facebook page that resulted from the meeting “Idle No More” as a reminder that the community had to “get off the couch and start working.”
Now the founders are featured in the ranking of Top Global Thinkers 2013 alongside famous notables such as NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry, Pope Francis, teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Check out the Foreign Policy magazine listing HERE.
