Jessie Fiddler-Kiss | Top 40 Under 40 2022

Jessie Fiddler-Kiss founded a non-profit organization to support Indigenous mothers and Two-Spirit parents with health and healing.

Photograph by Jared Sych

Age: 39

Job title: Indigenous Education and Organizational Consultant; Founder, The Moss Bag Project

Why she’s a 2022 Top 40 Under 40: Jessie Fiddler-Kiss founded a non-profit organization to support Indigenous mothers and Two-Spirit parents with health and healing.

Through strong ties to her Métis lineage, Jessie Fiddler-Kiss has long felt the call to serve her community. “I know where my family comes from and what they’ve been through,” she says. “To be in a space to give back feels right. It feels necessary.”

This outlook informs The Moss Bag Project (TMBP), a non-profit organization Fiddler-Kiss founded in 2014. TMBP provides support for Indigenous mothers and Two-Spirit parents by focusing on community love, reciprocity, birthing and child-rearing education; and the creation of moss bags (waspisonak in Cree), a way of physically wrapping up babies and sharing teachings.

The idea to start TMBP solidified when her own father passed away around the time Fiddler-Kiss welcomed her second baby. “All of these aunties came out to support me [after my dad’s death], and they gave me a moss bag,” she says. “I just remember thinking that all Indigenous parents and aunties should have this … a safe space to focus on loving their children and healing.”

Fiddler-Kiss says her work balances two paradigms that don’t always align. “[With TMBP], we’re trying to centre Indigenous teachings while decolonizing charity and community work,” she says. “We don’t always check the right boxes according to colonial systems of approval, which means funding organizations don’t always recognize the work that we do.”

Despite this challenge, TMBP continues to raise money for scholarships (five have been awarded to Indigenous parents to date); make, sell and gift hundreds of moss bags to Indigenous families; and share moss bag teachings in order to reclaim traditional parenting skills. “Birth is a beautiful place to begin healing,” says Fiddler-Kiss. “There’s a postpartum openness, so, if you provide support at that time, it can have a great effect on healing communities.”

Thank Yous
“My parents, my brother, my grandparents, my nieces, my husband and my children for all the unconditional love; and to the Moss Bag Project Aunties, to Elise, and to the network of women and ancestors that has held me in this lifetime, kinanaskomatin.”

 

Top 40 Under 40 2022

Tomi Ajele

Nagwan Al-Guneid

R.J. Bailot

Gursh Bal & Kai Fahrion

Kerry Black

Mark Blackwell

Doug Brown

Iman Bukhari

David Campbell

Andrew Chau

Vicki Van Chau

Brett Colvin

Jonathan M. Cornish

Amber Craig

Shaun Crawford

Sean Crump

Connor Curran & Dustin Paisley

Shannon Doram

Sam Effah

Jessie Fiddler-Kiss

Kenneth Fuh

Jiami Guo

Karl Hirzer

Jessica Janzen Olstad

Alex Kingcott

Evan Legate

David Leinster

Brendan MacArthur-Stevens

Madeleine MacDonald

Maximilian Michalowski

Sabrina Mueller

JP Pedhirney

Ali Pormohammad

Robert Price

Jordan Raugust

Alex Sarian

Simone Elizabeth Saunders

Harnarayan Singh

Leslie Skeith

Katie Smith-Parent

This article appears in the November 2022 issue of Avenue Calgary.

Related posts

Top 40 Under 40 2022

Alana Willerton

Top 40 Under 40 2022 Judges

avenuecalgary

Katie Smith-Parent | Top 40 Under 40 2022

avenuecalgary

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Privacy Policy

Privacy & Cookies Policy
Avenue Calgary