🌱 Living Eldership: Healing, Connection, and Community
Welcome to the Living Eldership Program—a journey of self-care and community engagement designed for later-life adults, especially those from LGBTQ2S+ and Indigenous communities. This program blends online interaction with real-world exchanges to foster healing, connection, and personal growth.
At its heart, Living Eldership is about creating space—both virtual and physical—for healing and connection. Imagine joining online gatherings where you not only connect with others but also receive meaningful items in the mail—small tokens representing diverse healing traditions. These gestures help make the virtual feel personal and grounded.
Rooted in years of community-led work focused on wellness and reconciliation, the program now expands to include elders as central figures in cross-generational conversations. It’s about learning from one another, sharing stories, and building trust between communities with long-standing healing practices and those rediscovering them.
But this isn’t just about personal growth—it’s about systems change. Elders Circle advocates for healing to be recognized as a basic human right and supported meaningfully by institutions. It’s a reminder that healing happens when we show up for each other, listen deeply, and create space for wisdom to be shared.
🌈 Trans and Two-Spirit Elders: Reclaiming Identity, Restoring Wellness
Transgender and Two-Spirit elders have lived through decades of systemic erasure, discrimination, and invisibility—often forced to hide their identities just to survive. Many came of age when being trans or Two-Spirit was criminalized, pathologized, or simply too dangerous to express openly. They endured job loss, family rejection, institutional violence, and the trauma of the AIDS crisis, all while navigating a world with little to no support.
Yet, they persisted.
Today, more trans and Two-Spirit elders are stepping into the light—reclaiming cultural practices, reconnecting with community, and finding healing in spaces that finally affirm their identities. For urbanized Indigenous elders, this often includes rediscovering ancestral teachings that were suppressed or lost through colonization, residential schools, and forced relocation. Many are now weaving together traditional medicine, ceremony, and contemporary wellness practices to restore balance and belonging.
The Living Eldership program honours this resilience by creating safe, inclusive environments where trans and Two-Spirit elders can share their stories, receive support, and engage in healing practices—some traditional, some newly rediscovered. These circles also serve as intergenerational bridges, allowing younger community members to learn from lived experience and cultural memory.
This is not just about care—it’s about restoring dignity, celebrating survival, and ensuring that trans and Two-Spirit elders are not only seen, but deeply valued.
It is also about reconciliation—between both generations and communities. By recognizing the shared ancestry that binds us—whether through blood, spirit, or story—we begin to heal the fractures of colonialism, displacement, and exclusion. In honoring our common ancestors, we affirm that every elder carries wisdom worth listening to, and every lineage holds medicine worth remembering.
Their wisdom is medicine. Their stories are teachings. Their presence is a gift.
🎨 Healing Through Creativity
Arts and crafts offer more than a creative outlet—they’re a powerful tool for healing, especially for older adults navigating isolation, trauma, or life transitions. Whether it’s painting, puppet-making, weaving, or sculpting, these hands-on activities help people reconnect with their sense of purpose and play.
Creative expression invites us to slow down, focus, and communicate in ways that words sometimes can’t. It builds confidence, sparks joy, and fosters meaningful social connection. In community settings, shared creative projects often lead to laughter, storytelling, and a sense of belonging.
For many, the act of making something with their hands becomes a pathway to emotional resilience and personal empowerment. It’s not just about the finished product—it’s about the process, the people, and the healing that happens along the way.
🌈 Program Objectives: Connection, Care, and Community
Host sessions where later-life adults from LGBTQ2S+ and Indigenous communities can gather for support, cultural sharing, and meaningful conversation.
- Create opportunities to socialize safely, even while physically apart, through engaging virtual meetups and shared activities.
- Offer practical seminars on financial wellness and fraud prevention, including tips on online banking, scam awareness, and protecting personal information.
- Provide simplified tech access through value-based tablets and equipment, helping elders overcome digital barriers and stay connected.
- Facilitate Hans Kai wellness groups that encourage self-managed care, peer support, and ongoing connection between sessions.
- Invite local businesses to share how they’re creating safer, more accessible services for vulnerable populations—like home delivery and fraud-aware practices.
- Host sessions that explore mental health risks and offer tools to build emotional resilience and wellness.
- Expand volunteer opportunities, empowering elders to contribute to other programs and support their peers in meaningful ways.
🌟 Eldership as a Path to Healing and Connection
Eldership isn’t just about age—it’s about wisdom, presence, and the unique role older adults play in shaping community wellness. When elders are supported to step into roles like storytellers, advisors, and cultural keepers, they help anchor communities in shared values and lived experience.
These roles are deeply rooted in many traditions, but for some—especially those in marginalized communities—they’re still being rediscovered. Creating space for elders to connect across cultures and identities opens up powerful opportunities for healing and mutual respect.
It’s a reminder that everyone has the right to heal, and that healing often begins with being seen, heard, and valued. When we nurture eldership in ways that reflect each community’s strengths and needs, we build bridges of understanding—and those bridges become the foundation for stronger, more resilient communities.
🌟 Eldership as a Path to Healing and Connection
Eldership isn’t just about age—it’s about wisdom, presence, and the unique role older adults play in shaping community wellness. When elders are supported to step into roles like storytellers, advisors, and cultural keepers, they help anchor communities in shared values and lived experience.
These roles are deeply rooted in many traditions, but for some—especially those in marginalized communities—they’re still being rediscovered. Creating space for elders to connect across cultures and identities opens up powerful opportunities for healing and mutual respect.
It’s a reminder that everyone has the right to heal, and that healing often begins with being seen, heard, and valued. When we nurture eldership in ways that reflect each community’s strengths and needs, we build bridges of understanding—and those bridges become the foundation for stronger, more resilient communities.
Are you an elder ready to reconnect, heal, and lead?
Are you part of a community that wants to uplift its wisdom keepers?
Join the Living Eldership Program and become part of a movement that values healing, storytelling, and intergenerational connection.
👉 Register today or invite an elder to participate.
📬 Receive your welcome kit and begin your journey with us.
🌐 Contact us to learn more and get involved.