History and Origins

The Coalition of Manitoba Cultural Communities for Families came to be in 2017 after many years as the General and Child and Family Services Authority (GA) “Reference Group.”

This Reference Group was formed in 2010 as part of the Canadian General Authority’s New Canadian Awareness and Education Initiative. An initiative designed to increase the ability of cultural communities to have greater impact in the strategy and planning of the New Canadian Initiative.

Over the years, this group of committed cultural community contacts and informal leaders met and developed relationships within the child welfare system, with a view of ensuring community voices would be heard, validated, and respected within policy development and support systems.

Our objective was to create and sustain better child welfare practices for all community families and their children. Through this process, we identified a need to adjust the scope to encompass a broader array of support systems and agencies that communities engage with. We have organized multiple events that have facilitated mutual learning and built community capacity to educate and inform the navigation of complex organizational layers and public policy.

The Coalition continues to focus on creating an open and transparent environment. Membership, roles, and responsibilities remain open and flexible so as to ensure the structure will continually evolve with community needs.

About CMCCF

We are a diverse, collaborative network of individuals united to promote the well-being of Manitoba’s cultural communities. Using engagements, events and storytelling projects, we promote social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion through facilitated conversations where diverse voices can be heard and amplified. We are dedicated to building relationships based on trust, respect, and dignity for all.

Acknowledgement of Original Lands

CMCCF is located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. We respect the Treaties that were made on these territories, we acknowledge the harms and mistakes of the past, and we dedicate ourselves to move forward in partnership with Indigenous communities in a spirit of reconciliation and collaboration.

Contact Us

Winnipeg, MB

Canada

Email:hello@cmccfamilies.ca

Website:https://www.cmccfamilies.ca

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Purpose

The Purpose of These Peace-First: CollaborationNet Pages These pages exist to share what we have learned. Over the past year, Peace-First: CollaborationNet has operated as a time-limited demonstration initiative, which is a space to test ideas, host conversations, and discover what might grow when peace is placed at the center. Conversations took root in informal Peace-First Hubs across Winnipeg, Thompson, Brandon, and Portage la Prairie, with related gatherings in Vancouver and Toronto. Toronto now helps convene national roundtable conversations, linking local dialogue with a broader Canadian exchange. What began as small, local discussions has become more connected — not through expansion or centralization, but through coherence. Across regions, shared themes, tensions, and hopes are emerging. This webpage documents that journey. It gathers reflections, materials, and learning from Hub conversations so others can understand what has been explored and carry it forward. From the beginning, Peace-First was designed as a seed-planting initiative, formally concluding March 31, 2026. Its focus has been to explore how individuals and cultural communities understand inner peace, collective vision, community cohesion, and cultural dignity and visibility. The Hubs are volunteer-led spaces where community connectors and members gather to listen, reflect, and imagine what a peaceful geographic and cultural community might look like in practice. Along the way, we developed background papers, reflection documents, and practical toolkits shaped by lived experience in Manitoba and beyond. This page now serves as a living repository within the Peace-First Library, offering capacity-building tools, framing papers, hub guidance, and shared learning that communities can adapt to their own realities. The purpose is not to centralize authority, but to make learning accessible. Peace-First Hubs are community-led and partner-supported — grounded in relationship, not hierarchy. Supported by ACOMI, ECCM, Palaver Hut, MIA, cultural community members across the country, and allies such as MANSO, Mediation Services, CanU Canada, and PCHS, this work moves through partnership rather than control. This initiative has been made possible through the principal financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, with a supportive role played by The Winnipeg Foundation. Their investment has allowed these conversations, materials, and connections to take shape. These materials are not instructions to replicate. They are tools to adapt. This page is more than documentation. It is an invitation. Peace-First is not about imposing a uniform model. It is about strengthening conditions for dialogue, cohesion, and shared responsibility before a crisis. If this resonates, we invite you to explore further, join a national roundtable call, or consider what it would mean to host or support a conversation in your own community. Join a national roundtable call. Complete the survey. The seeds have been planted. What grows next depends on all of us.