The Name Matters is a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous volunteers who advocate for respectful and inclusive place names in the qathet region that reflect these lands' oral history and the present-day communities residing on them. Together, our focus is to educate, raise awareness, and elevate Indigenous voices with compassion and understanding.
The Name Matters does not publish all of the names of the people involved in the work behind the scenes — deliberately. At this time, there is a great deal of racism surfacing in relation to conversations around place names. Understanding that transparency is often seen as a foundational commitment in a lot of public work, The Name Matters has made the considered strategic decision to centre the safety of those involved, paramount to transparency.
This is an effort to ensure those who are doing the heavy lifting of this work are safe and well, and to reduce their experiences of being targeted with hate and racism, and the stress this brings. Maintaining a collective voice enables us to work in a way that upholds our responsibilities to centre one another’s wellness.