Heather O'Watch Email & Phone Number

Heather is a Nakoda and Cree woman from the Okanese First Nation located in Treaty 4 Territory, she also has paternal ties to Cegakin (Carry The Kettle) First Nation. Heather is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Policy (MPP) through the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at University of Saskatchewan. Heather is the founder of Timpsina Society and the Prairie Indigenous Youth Policy Academy, an initiative led to support First Nations on-reserve youth in policy and advocacy development in the prairies. An official delegate for the Y7 Summit 2023 (Tokyo, Japan), she is leading the Global Health track and is the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion coordinator. The Y7 delegation is the official youth voice for the G7 Summit. She was a member on the Young Canadians Roundtable on Health, an initiative with the Sandbox Project in helping develop more equitable Canadian health policy for children and youth. Heather's experience extends in the areas of ; communications/media, community research and community development and policy. Her community research experiences have been in; Water Governance and Policy, Aging Health and Dementia research amongst Indigenous communities, Sexual Reproduction Health Rights amongst Indigenous women in Canada and as well as Indigenous Philanthropy and the Settler Philanthropic Sector. Heather has work experience internationally in Colombia working in youth and rural community development. Heather also worked in a variety of capacities in communications including; journalism, television post-production, social media strategist, events manager and public relations.While Heather was in her undergraduate, she was an advocate for Indigenous rights and post-secondary education. Along with her advocacy work for higher education, she also was the provincial representative on the national executive for the Canadian Federation of Students where she represented over 320,000 post-secondary students across Canada. When not studying or working, Heather spends her time with family, learning Nakota and Nehiyaw teachings, language and creative writing. Heather is in the middle of gathering stories regarding lineage and Nakota history with the hopes of publishing a history book in the future.She recently published her first children’s book both in Nehiyaw (Y-dialect) and English which is available for preorder now at: https://secondstorypress.ca/2023-books/okwsimw-omkiwin-askhknihk-ohci/aunties-rez-surprise

Listed skills include Social Media, Research, International Relations, Communication, and 12 others.