Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively dig deep to aid indigenous leaders in Canada

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are handing out more summer cash - this time to a leadership initiative for indigenous women in Nova Scotia.

The couple recently donated $200,000 (£162,500) to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Legal Defense Fund to aid those fighting racial injustice, and now the actors have offered up the same amount to the St. Francis Xavier University's Coady Institute in Reynolds' native Canada to help fund the Circle of Abundance, which helps indigenous women seeking leadership roles.

"We're so happy to support the incredible work of the Coady Institute's program with Indigenous Women," a statement from the pair reads. "We're blown away by the conversations we've had and the work they do and look forward to joining them on this journey."

The donation comes as Canada's National Indigenous History Month comes to a close on Tuesday.

The husband and wife team, who have children James and Inez, revealed it was their kids who had motivated them to donate the big cash sum to the National Association initiative.

"We’ve never had to worry about preparing our kids for different rules of law or what might happen if we’re pulled over in the car," the couple said in a statement. "We don’t know what it’s like to experience that life day in and day out. We can’t imagine feeling that kind of fear and anger. We’re ashamed that in the past we’ve allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is.

"We’ve been teaching our children differently than the way our parents taught us. We want to educate ourselves about other people’s experiences and talk to our kids about everything , all of it... especial our own complicity. We talk about our bias, blindness and our own mistakes."