Indigenous Research & Community Engagement

By Stela Rakwach, 1st year MDP student

 

My field placement is in Winnipeg, I have been working on Indigenous Financial Exclusion (IFE) Literacy project, which is headed by Dr. Jerry Buckland. I began my practicum on the 1st of May and will be done at the end of July. As part of my practicum I am working as a research assistant under Dr. Buckland and I have also met with IFE the project’s steering committee. I will help conduct the IFE study which will be done in three sites namely: SEED Winnipeg, Ma Mawi and Fisher River Cree Nation (FRCN). The study focuses on the use of mainstream financial institutions (banks and credit unions) and the use of fringe banks (payday lenders) by Aboriginal people. We have been working on the literature review and will soon be starting the data collection which will be done through: key informant interviews, resident surveys, financial life histories and participatory methods (needs and resource assessment, problem tree & ‘perfect’ bank).

Initially I worked from the Global College during May. Since the beginning of June I have had the chance to visit all the three project sites SEED Winnipeg and Ma Mawi where I had a brief orientation into their programs and FRCN where I attended a community health fair and visited the band office. I also met Councillor Dion McKay to discuss how to find participants for the study.  From June I have been based at Ma Mawi (McGregor site) and am enjoying meeting various people and getting immersed into the community.

Attending the community health fair held at the Charles Sinclair School in Fisher River. From L to R: Brielle Beaudien, Carole Cochrane,, Dr. Shailesh  Shukla, Gabrielle Heroux and Stela (me).

In addition to the research project, I had a wonderful reunion with the Winnipeg MDP team (Badriyya, Gabrielle, Evelyn and Naomi) at the ‘’Models & Best Practices-Sustainable Northern Development’’ round table held at the Richardson College building on June 12th. Together we met The University of Winnipeg President, Dr. Lloyd Axworthy and listened to the keynote speech from Justice Thomas Berger on development in Northern Canada.