When you meet Tina Savea, you’ll feel it right away – the warmth, the love, the presence that folks call “big auntie energy.”
There’s also no mistaking her laugh, which fills the room – loud, infectious and heartfelt – the kind of auntie laugh that makes you feel like you've been friends forever.
In many Indigenous cultures, aunties are more than relatives – they’re second mothers, confidantes and guides – women who hold communities together and lift up the next generation.
Savea embodies that role, carrying it with both pride and purpose.
A proud Saulteaux and Cree woman, the 46-year-old juggles many roles – an advocate in Saanich schools for Indigenous families, wife, a mother to three teenagers, and a leader who has helped bring difficult conversations about truth and reconciliation into community spaces.
But getting herself to this place has been a journey and a half.
Savea grew up in Saskatchewan, mostly on the Keeseekoose First Nation reserve, with her parents and brothers.
Surrounded by generations of family, Savea describes the reserve as her safe place.
"I could just be me,” she says.
But leaving the reserve was another story. Groceries, medical appointments, all meant trips into nearby towns, where she slowly became aware over time that she and her family were seen as “different.”
“It was like we had to learn how to live in two worlds,” she says. “On reserve, we understood each other. Off reserve, it was different – you're getting followed around and watched in the drugstore, and you're wondering why they're just following you – I’m just a kid.
"Those kinds of things began to make me understand that we're not actually looked at as equals."
That awareness sharpened when her parents moved the family off the reserve to Balcarres, where she studied grades 9 and 10 at public school.
One day, a white friend asked Savea where she was from. When she answered "Keeseekoose," he told her, “I would never set foot out of my car in that place.”
“At the time, I laughed it off,” says Savea. “But later, it really sunk in. I couldn't understand why he was afraid to visit our community, when for me, that was the safest place for me. It was more scary for me to be in this public school."
The exchange was a turning point.
"That was my first realization of how separated we are in our 'two worlds' – that's where I first really had that understanding."
Her newfound awareness then built into shame.
“I really struggled with being proud of who I was … I didn't want people to know that I was First Nation,” Savea says.
Craving acceptance, when Savea left high school to study hairdressing, she surrounded herself with white friends, laughing along at racist jokes, staying quiet rather than risk standing out.
“I started pushing down my feelings. I didn't want people to think I'm weak or offended,” she says. “Back then, in the '90s, it wasn’t cool to be Indigenous. So if someone thought I was Spanish or Filipino, I didn’t correct them.
"I was just happy to be something else other than First Nation.”
Savea kept distancing herself from her First Nations roots, her insecurities pulling her into what she calls a “rebellious stage.” Eventually, she realized something had to change.
“I needed to turn my life around – I needed to leave home, my community, in order to get my life in order,” she explains.
That decision took her to Abbotsford, where she joined a Christian missionary program and met her husband Niu, a proud Samoan man from the South Pacific.
His confidence in his culture was magnetic for Savea.
“Not only was he really handsome, but a big part of my attraction to him was he was so strong in who he was,” she says with a smile. “But he also used to struggle with me. He’d say, ‘Why can’t you just be proud of who you are?’ At first it annoyed me – he didn’t know the history.
“But he saw the beauty in me as a First Nations woman, even when I couldn’t.”
The couple has been married for over 22 years. They moved to the Saanich Peninsula 16 years ago to raise their three children: Joshua (19), Hope (17) and Benjamin (15).
Slowly, through her husband’s example, Savea began to embrace her own roots.
But another turning point was yet to come.
In 2008, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission began, giving residential school survivors a platform to share their experiences – including Savea’s Saulteaux father Elton.
Her parents had met at Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School in Lebret, Sask. Growing up, Savea says she was largely unaware of what they endured; her parents had shielded her from the full truth.
“My parents loved us and gave us this really good, safe life,” Savea remembers. “But it wasn’t always that way. There was dysfunction in our family – definitely signs of trauma. You could see it in my father, but I didn’t know why until I was an adult – he was abused in residential school. My mom didn’t know either.”
The truth began to surface when her father attended a hearing to seek compensation for an incident that had happened when he was 11. He went alone, asking the family to respect his privacy.
“He came back with a settlement, but it cracked something open in him that he had spent his whole life trying to bury,” Savea says.
Her father, who had never previously shown signs of addiction, spiralled into substance use – first alcohol, then “whatever he could get his hands on,” Savea recalls. Within a few years, he died of a methadone overdose.
“It was really fast. And for a long time, I felt angry – angry that my kids didn’t get to have a proper relationship with him,” she says tearfully. “But out of his death came healing. It forced us as a family to have conversations we’d never had.
"And it's caused us to choose to want to heal."
The loss also lit a fire in Savea. She didn’t just want to carry her father’s story; she wanted to use it to open eyes and push for change.
That opportunity came through the Kairos Blanket Exercise, an interactive workshop that guides participants through 500 years of Indigenous history, highlighting pivotal moments such as colonization and residential schools.
As the exercise unfolds, blankets representing the land are gradually folded, shrinking the space participants can stand on – visually demonstrating the loss of Indigenous territories. At the end, participants are invited to share and reflect on the experience.
“When I first did it, I shared my dad’s story,” says Savea. “I remember feeling free – I just gave my dad, at 11 years old, a voice. I don’t know if he ever tried to tell someone back then, but if he did, no one listened.
"So I felt like I gave that kid a voice.”
From that moment, Savea began facilitating the Kairos Blanket Exercise herself. Over the next nine years, she eventually brought in her husband and children to help lead.
“Every time I tell his story, I find more healing. And people – Indigenous or non-Indigenous – find connection, because trauma and addiction are things everyone understands. It really builds bridges.”
Alongside leading workshops, Savea works as an Indigenous family advocate with the Saanich School District, guiding parents through the education system and making sure their children receive the support they need.
“I love this job,” she says. “Sometimes parents don’t even know they can walk into a school or speak up – they’re afraid to do that. I love helping them find their voice.”
Her energy also extends beyond advocacy. Savea has launched projects like a clothing brand celebrating Indigenous pride and a new non-profit promoting access to sports for talented Indigenous youth.
“In the fall, we’re starting our elite training for basketball players, which my children get to be a part of,” she says, her face lighting up with a wide grin.
Her passion and dedication have made her a familiar and beloved figure in North Saanich, where she lives, and across the Peninsula. The contrast between the confident woman she is today and the high schooler who once tried to hide her identity isn’t lost on Savea.
“If I could talk to that girl, I would say: don’t worry so much about what people think," she says. “Remember who will be there with you in the end: your family and your community. Those people with small minds won’t be in your life forever.
"Be strong, be courageous, remember who you are.”
It’s a message Savea repeats often to her three children – encouragement she says she inherited from her mother Theresa, who is Cree and Saulteaux from the Peepeekisis Cree Nation.
Education has always been the backbone of her family’s story.
Savea’s mom, who had her at 17 after leaving residential school and her brother two years later, put herself through university as a young parent. She went on to teach in small Indigenous communities, only retiring last year.
“My mom changed the trajectory for our family,” Savea says proudly. “She valued education and really instilled that in us. For my brothers and I, not graduating from high school was never an option.”
Carrying that spirit forward, Savea homeschooled her children for six years – not to keep them out of public schools, but to ensure they entered with a strong sense of identity.
“What I didn’t want for them was the high school experience I had – the insecurities, the fears, the feeling of being less,” she explains. “I told them the system wasn’t built with us in mind. Not so they’d feel like victims, but so they’d be prepared.
"I wanted them to know that maybe they’ll have to fight a little harder, ask more questions – but that’s OK, because it will make them stronger.”
That preparation has mattered. When her children have faced racism or bias, Savea says they’ve learned to turn those experiences into fuel. Her youngest even became the subject of a documentary about discrimination in sports.
“I want them to know they’re worthy,” she says. “That they may have to speak louder sometimes, but they are never less than anyone else in any way at all.”
It’s a lesson that extends beyond her household – one that shapes the way she sees her family’s future and the strength of her community.
“We're loving life and we're healing … I’m happy,” she says, her voice steady and sure, proud of her family’s resilience. “We're not stuck in the pain that my family lived through … I’m excited for the future, I'm excited for my children.
"And there are so many other First Nation Indigenous people experiencing the same.”
For her, reconciliation isn’t just about remembering the hurt. It’s about showing the next generations what’s possible.
“I want people to see the positive side too. This isn’t just for me or my kids – there are generations coming who will be shaped by the choices I’m making now, with my children and grandchildren.”
“But I’m not a grandmother yet,” she adds, quickly correcting herself with her trademark auntie laugh – a sound full of joy and strength that perfectly captures her heart, her humour, and the unstoppable force she is in her family and community.
