Cari Kilmartin is a member of Newo’s communications team and regional co-ordinator for the Faithful Footprints program. She is interested in storytelling, history, and feminism, and her passions intersect with Newo’s mission to foster harmonious relationships and share abundance.
life story so far
It was ministry that first took a young Cari Kilmartin places.
Her father’s job as a pastor prompted a move from Edmonton to Beausejour, Manitoba, at age two, and her parents later brought twelve-year-old Cari and her three brothers (two older, one younger) along as they served as missionaries in Nigeria for a year.
“It was a really good experience, but almost a bit of a waste on me, because I was such a nightmare — honestly, the butt-of-family-jokes kind of a nightmare,” Cari says, laughing. However, “Reflecting back on it now, I think my brothers and I got a lot out of it that my parents wanted us to, just being aware of our privilege and also the excess [of a North American lifestyle].”
Back in Canada, the family (minus her two older brothers) returned to Alberta for Cari’s high school years. Afterward, instead of heading straight to university with no other goal than to play volleyball, she got a job with Air Canada at Edmonton International Airport. It was an opportunity to travel and meet all kinds of people, but after three years Cari knew she didn’t want to work there the rest of her life, and opted to pursue a history degree at Augustana, a small campus where she could play ACAC volleyball.
“I was a very, very bad high-school student, and the only reason that I survived was because of sports, so I really wanted to try and make that happen at university,” she says. “In hindsight, I don’t think I needed sports. University was a way better experience than high school.”
Halfway through, she quit the volleyball team to play soccer, and took on a second major in English.
“It was a grind, but also worth it, because what I got out of history is completely different from what I got out of English, and I think they complement each other really, really well.”
turning points
Quitting Air Canada was a major life decision, but Cari knew at the time leaving a secure job to become a history major was a choice that would only get harder as years went by.
It was worth the risk. Many of her classes prompted her to rethink her worldview, and set Cari on her current path.
“I had a few university classes that genuinely rocked me. Spirit of the Land would be one of them, but I had really influential profs and then also classmates, honestly, because the class sizes are so small everyone can pipe up.”
Another significant life event occurred in Cari’s first year of university; her parents moved back to Africa for good. Their internet connection is only OK, not great, so contact is typically limited to texts, WhatsApp messages and phone calls with her dad every couple of months.
“I don’t know how much that will shape the rest of my life, but it was a major event and still is, because, you know, my parents are far away,” she says.
The silver lining is that Augustana is where Cari met her best friend, Jill, and Sebastien, now her husband.
core values
University is also where Cari had the chance to study feminism, and it helped form part of the foundation of her value system.
“Being a feminist is not just about male-female dynamics, it’s just about overall equality,” she says. “That’s something that I, as a woman, have as lived experience. There’s a lot of other causes that I sympathise with and care about, but they’re not rooted within me, and feminism is, just because of who I am and what I am.”
Feminism also “encompasses the natural world and caring for it. It encompasses Indigenous feminism and caring for and including and amplifying those voices. Being a feminist is an all-encompassing way of life.”
rooted in people or place
The question of whether people or places create roots is an emotional one for someone whose childhood spanned provinces, and whose family is spread halfway around the world.
“With my parents being gone and my brothers split between Alberta and Manitoba, I definitely don’t feel at home in any one place,” she says. “Anywhere with Seb I feel at home, and anywhere when it’s me and my brothers together. If my parents are there, it’s an added bonus — anywhere where we’re together.”
Reflecting on how connection to place can be limited for descendants of Canada’s recent settler past, Cari says she feels drawn to Scotland and Ireland, where her father’s ancestry lies. (There’s even a village in Scotland called Kilmartin, which she plans to visit.)
“I really want to go to these places to see, maybe, if things feel different,” she says, “as someone who hasn’t had a connection to the land and everything that’s wrapped up in it.”