“A powerful healing ceremony.” That’s how Indigenous peoples at WIPCE 2025, described the World Blanket Exercise (WBE).

KAIROS Blanket Exercise Global and Newcomer Coordinator Alfredo Barahona joined Thelma Parker and Jayde Conway from Australia, to deliver a presentation about the World Blanket Exercise at WIPCE 2025 held in Aotearoa (New Zealand) in Nov. 2025, where more than four thousand Indigenous Peoples gathered.

“To heal, we must know the wound,” said Dr. Jeffrey Ansloos professor of Indigenous Health and Social Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies on Education who offered a keynote address.

At WIPCE, even just to talk about the Blanket Exercise had an impact on participants. After the WBE presentation, an Indigenous woman from Nova Scotia spoke of her experience as facilitator of the KAIROS Blanket Exercise (KBE). For her, the KAIROS Blanket Exercise is real. “I highly recommend it. Experience the KBE if you can,” she said.

The room was over capacity with more than 100 people. Several attendees said they want to explore bringing the Blanket Exercise to their territories. The wheels are in motion for potential new partnerships in the future.

One participant said: “The World Blanket Exercise is a perfect fit for a conference on Indigenous education like WIPCE. It is a powerful tool for indigenizing and decolonizing education. Indigenous peoples must decide what, when and how we learn and from whom.” They want to see the WBE at the next WIPCE, which will be held in 2028 on the island of Hawai’i.

In the photo: Jayde Conway (Western Australia), Alfredo Barahona KAIROS Canada and Thelma Parker (Eastern Australia) prepare to present the World Blanket Exercise at WIPCE, November 18, 2025