Native Friendship Centre

Friendship Centres are nonprofit community organizations that provide services to urban Inuit, Métis, and First Nations (Status and Non-status) people.

This migration was largely a result of enfranchisement and assimilation policies in Canada,[3] that meant many people were not allowed to return to their home communities and were forced to relocate to towns and cities.

Executive Committee members are elected for two year terms, at staggered intervals, at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Association.

The NAFC also monitors the activities and programs of various federal government departments which have a mandate to provide either funding or services to urban Aboriginal people.

The NAFC is also active on a number of external committees and associations which are related to urban Aboriginal people in areas such as: literacy, racism, AIDS, employment equity, economic development and justice to name a few.

In 1972 the Government of Canada formally recognized the viability of Friendship Centres and implemented the Migrating Native Peoples Program (MNPP).

In 1983, the NAFC and the Department of the Secretary of State (DSOS) successfully negotiated the evolution of the MNPP to the Native Friendship Centre Program (NFCP).

However, the funding relationship fundamentally changed in 1996, when the administrative responsibility for the AFCP was transferred from the Department of Canadian Heritage to the NAFC.