Harmony Foundation Environmental Essay Prize

Empowering Young Scholars to Drive Change

Each year, RAVEN partners with the Harmony Foundation of Canada to award the annual Harmony Environmental Essay Prize.

We know that many of the complex and wicked problems of our time require collaborative solutions that reach across cultures and communities. This is why the prize is awarded for essays that inspire work that prioritizes Indigenous traditional knowledge, practical solutions, and generating meaningful impact across social, cultural, environmental, and economic spheres.

The Goal

Essays should focus on the experience of working with Indigenous communities and share lessons learned that can inform others in working with and within Indigenous communities. We aren’t looking for the theoretical in these essays, but rather stories that can inform direct action and change.

The five main criteria we consider in selecting a winner are:

Is the essay on the topic of work with and within Indigenous communities for the improvement/protection of the environment, culture and/or their economies?
Does the essay reflect on the experience of the author and potentially serve to inform or inspire others to work with Indigenous communities?
Does the essay engage with Indigenous knowledge and experiences?
Does the essay consider any relevant ethical considerations of the work? For example, data sovereignty, consent for research, etc.
Is the essay well structured and proofread?

The winner will be awarded $1,500 and second place will receive $500. First and second-prize winners will also be inscribed into the commemorative wall in RAVEN’s office.

The deadline for entries for the Harmony Environmental Essay Prize is August 4th, 2025. Submissions open Mar 17, 2025. All Master’s and professional programs (Law, Med, etc.) students are eligible.

Submissions for the 2025 Harmony Environmental Essay Prize are closed.

2024 Harmony Essay Prize Winners!

We are happy to announce this year’s Harmony Essay Prize winner!

In first place is Desiree Hana Louis with her paper Resilient Roots Protecting Identity, Heritage, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

For the second place prize, we have Ayla Joe with her paper The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Crisis: The Continued Mark of Absence.

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