Editor’s note: This story was written in partnership with Public Policy Forum.

Raven Lacerte was awarded the Public Policy Forum’s Emerging Leader Award on Thursday.

A member of the Lake Babine First Nation in North-Central B.C., she is the Co-Founder and National Ambassador for the Moose Hide Campaign.

Since founding the campaign with her father in 2011, Raven has travelled across Canada to share the medicine of the campaign in presentations, media engagements, and participating on panels.

Future of Good spoke to her about her remarkable journey, some of the challenges the campaign has faced and how she does this joyful yet traumatic work.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity. 

Q: The Moose Hide Campaign grows every year, yet for many Canadians, this will be the first they’ve heard about it. Can you tell us how the campaign started and how it’s grown?

A: My dad and I started the Moose Hide Campaign together in 2011. We got this idea while we were out on a hunting trip in our home community, which is right where the Highway of Tears is. Violence happens along that highway all the time, and people often go missing along that highway. And there are devastating impacts when we lose a precious one or when there’s violence done to the women and children in our lives and in our communities.

So we really just wanted to do something to help be part of that solution. And so it was while we were out on a hunting trip on the Highway of Tears that we got this idea to tan up a moose hide that we were able to get that year and cut it up into a bunch of little squares. My sisters and I hand-cut the first 25,000 squares and hand-wrote those 25,000 cards. 

We just tried to create something and hand them out and invite Canadians, and men and boys, specifically, especially men and boys, into the space. So that’s kind of how it got started. 

Q: You were a teenager when you co-founded the Moose Hide Campaign. Did you ever expect it to get as big as it has?

We had no idea. But it turns out that people really wanted it. People were really ready for this kind of medicine and really loved to wear that because it helps to promote conversations. So often, those conversations lead to action, and that action leads to change. 

So, people are mobilizing and using the Moose Head Campaign to bring healing, deepen our understanding, and share commitment around this issue. 

I’m so surprised every single day that it keeps growing, and it’s growing exponentially right now. It took us six years to get to our first million pins. Since last April, we’ve handed out two million pins in one year. 

It’s really become a national movement now, and it’s incredible to help, even just to be a part of the change and bring more love, safety, and hope to our country. 

Q: While bearing witness to stories of violence, grief, and death are a necessary part of understanding and reconciliation, they can be traumatic to hear, especially for a young person. How do you take care of your mental health while still doing this kind of awareness work?

Being in this space of trying to be part of a movement to end violence towards women and children, I am often somebody that hears so many stories, right? People who have been in that space, whether they have experienced violence of any form or maybe they’ve witnessed violence in their lives, I am someone who is a holder of these stories

We really try to practice intimacy, but we say, like, In-To-Me-See. So, I practice that openness, vulnerability, and sharing in as many spaces as I can. But it really does take a toll on my health, my wellbeing, and my spirit. 

I’m also equally as filled with hope. And I’m also a holder of the stories of people who come back and share how this campaign is impacting their lives and changing their relationships and their families, their communities, like all of these different pieces. 

So it’s both hard but also fulfilling, knowing that it’s making an impact. 

For my mental health upkeep, I do a little prayer before each time I do any sort of presentation or engagement, just to, like, protect. I envision a little bubble so that I can be present in each space that I go into without taking on people’s traumas. I’ve gotten vicarious trauma through this work.

And so lots of ceremony and lots of smudging and lots Indigenous practices, to upkeep my mental health and seeing a counsellor … to make sure that this work is sustainable.

Q: What was the reaction from men to the campaign?

My dad went to a conference in Vancouver around the same time that we started the campaign. It was about ending violence towards women and children, and there were 285 people at that conference, but only four of those people were men. 

We knew an issue like violence against women and children has been seen to be like, in quotations, “a women’s issue” for a very long time. So, women have had to bear the burden of advocacy and support while operating in this space alone for a long time. 

We wanted to come up with a way that invited men and boys into this space in a good way, where it’s not about that blame or that shame but … to be part of it together. 

So, the response, I think, is mostly overwhelmingly positive. I think people are really ready. Lots of people already live by these values. And now have (the Moose Hide pin) as a tool to hold on to, to speak to about how they operate in the world. And so this medicine, this pin, is one of those things we offer for people who want it and are ready for it. 

We’ve made a forever promise to never charge for the recipients. And so, we want it to be really easy and as accessible to folks as possible. 

Q: Have you been working with police and law enforcement partners on this? How is that relationship going?

Violence is everywhere. If so many people are impacted by this issue, and if it’s not us directly, then it might be somebody that we know. There are so many spaces where this medicine could really be used. And so, we find it’s really important to us that we spread this medicine as far and as wide as we can. 

And so, different law enforcement groups have taken on the Mooose Hide Campaign in their own ways. We’ve also worked with the RCMP, and it’s the first and only thing they have had permission and encouragement to wear on their uniforms year-round. They’re also able to wear the poppy, but this is the first thing that they’re able to wear year-round. 

And so, you see RCMP members across the country wearing the Moose Hide pin and really stepping up in this way.

Q: Do you have a favourite story to tell us related to the campaign?

One of the presentations I was just doing, a man (told organizers the next day) “I hadn’t heard about the campaign before. And I mean, I heard about it, but I didn’t really understand the story behind it and all of the different pieces.” And he’s like, once I heard Raven speak, I immediately went and started talking to my son about it, who is 19, and we just had a really beautiful, open, honest conversation that they hadn’t had before. 

And the son was like, well, let’s order Moose Hide pins together and go and hand those out together. And so they ordered 50, and then the guy said, “I even went as far as to ask him to fast with me for the day, and he said yes.”

And so now that father and son are going to fast with us this year on most high campaign day.

Q: What advice would you give to young people who want to make a difference in their communities, who maybe don’t have the confidence to start something like this?

I felt that way, too. But I really believe in our country’s ability to create more safety and healing for all those things. (My father and I) knew that we wanted to do something, but we weren’t totally sure what that thing was. And then we just wanted to try it, right? 

So my encouragement is just to try things, especially if you feel really passionate about it and just try it. And if it flops, it flops, and if it doesn’t, well, everybody’s experiences matter. 

I had no idea that there was going to be any sort of anything that came out of this. And now we have about a dozen employees. And it’s become a national movement. So if you believe in it, then just try it.

Q: Where can people find out more about how to participate?

People can find us at moosehidecampaign.ca. If you could just say the importance of registering on the site for campaign day, just because that helps us be able to tell the story of what happened. We had half a million Canadians register to be part of the day with us last year.

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