The Urban Indigenous Health and Healing Cooperative (UIHHC), founded in 2017, is a Vancouver-based Indigenous health cooperative that partners Indigenous Elders with an experienced group of inner-city physicians and allied health professionals to provide physical, mental, emotional and spiritual care to the community in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Its mandate is to provide culturally safe, relevant and effective care to patients of all nations as they journey towards better health.

Munro/Thompson was engaged to support the cooperative’s branding process, and develop the identity, website and social presence.

The branding process was collaborative and indigenous-led by Latash Nahanee, a well known Squamish Nation artist. The brand needed to be inclusive, speaking not only to local Coast Salish Nations, but to be welcoming to the over 200 Nations represented in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Munro/Thompson worked with Latash and the organization’s board and Elders to develop a concept for the logo that spoke to core elements of Indigenous healing: medicine, place, land and nature.

Then, with the blessing of the cooperative’s Elders, our creative team supported by turning the sketches into the final digital logo and developing the full brand platform for UIHHC. Munro/Thompson also produced photographic assets and a short film for the organization’s launch.

Website development

The website and brand launched in December 2017 and in the first few months the UIHHC secured over $30,000 in funding. The cooperative is actively continuing its fundraising campaign to be able to develop programs and secure a practice space.