Coeuraj collaborated with the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC) across two complementary project scopes focused on supporting and amplifying the Friendship Centre Movement’s anti-violence work.

Through the first scope, Coeuraj researched and developed a report analyzing the Final Report of the National Inquiry on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women & Girls (MMIWG) through an Urban Indigenous lens. This research report provides an analytical framework to ground Friendship Centres undertaking practical and principles-based activities addressing violence across local, regional, and national communities, with a focus on women, girls, and 2SLGBTQIAA people.

Coeuraj was then asked to lead NAFC and members of its regional and local leadership in co-creating a Friendship Centre-led anti-violence action plan that serves, in equal parts, as a community roadmap to guide program development and facilitate cross collaboration, and an external resource to support policy and advocacy activities. To do so, Coeuraj designed and facilitated a multi-part collaborative design journey that prompted participants to reflect on community needs, discuss programming best practices, and define a shared vision of what types of healthy and thriving futures Urban Indigenous communities can build—and what is really needed to get there.

These activities enabled alignment between diverse members of the Friendship Centre Movement and generated a robust list of next steps and recommendations that now live in a national anti-violence action plan.