Samantha Mathews is a young activist who graduated from a youth leadership program called Next Up, a national program aimed at young leadership from 18-32 to engage in social and environmental issues and learn progressive leadership skills and she hopes to engage indigenous young people back in her territory to become politically engaged and learn traditional forms of governance.
Currently involved in advocating for food sovereignty, Samantha has done language and medicine walks and workshops with her mom and protecting indigenous food systems; has been involved in such movements like the Tiny House Warriors, a movement to build tiny houses to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline from being built in Secwepemc territory; has also helped and visited frontline actions like Camp Ulluisc on St’at’imc territory against the logging and mining on ancestral lands and the Matriarch camp on Lekwegun territory occupying the BC premier’s office in support of banning the fish farms and supporting the fish farm occupations up on ‘Namgis and Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw territories. She is currently on the working group for developing NAN’s food symposium and has been invited to blog for Sustain Ontario about her backpacking adventures of visiting nations and learning of medicines, teachings, food histories/systems, industry issues and actions that she documents on social media. She hopes to grow food for frontline action camps one day.