Celeste Smith Email & Phone Number

Celeste Smith (she/her) is Oneida from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. As an intergenerational trauma survivor, she has made it her life's mission to help Women/Gender Diverse People rebuild their connections to the land and their lifeways. Celeste is an intergenerational seed steward, traditional agriculturalist and former instructor of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) at Niagara College. Her TEK comes from a strong connection to her family's agricultural traditions and 30 years of personal/community gardening, and she continues to educate herself through ceremony and mentorship with traditional healers and agricultural Knowledge Holders from around the world.She is the Founder/Director of Cultural Seeds (culturalseeds.com) an Indigenous seed store/rematriation project and Ga Gitigemi Gamik (wewillplantlodge.com) an ecological center on a permanent Indigenous stewarded site, where women and 2SLGBTTQQIA+ persons can (RE)learn ancestral agricultural methods lost to colonization. Ga Gitigemi Gamik recently won the i3 Indigenous Innovation Challenge at the Desjardins Cooperathon which is the world's largest Social Innovation Challenge, and was a Finalist in the MIT Global Solve Competition 2024 - Indigenous Communities. Celeste's critical work centers around Indigenous Food Sovereignty, Land Justice and Indigenous Human Rights.As a Food Sovereignty leader, Celeste is the Co-Chair of the Peel Food Action Council (PFAC), the Co-Chair of the International Committee for The National Farmers Union (NFU), a member of the Climate Action Committee for La Via Campesina, and recently been appointed as the focal point for North America to the CSIPM (Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism) to the UN FAO World Committee for Food Security.