Water Connects Us

 By Andrea Dsouza, 2nd year MDP student 

Hello everyone. This is my second update on my placement with the Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute (AAI) located in White Earth, Minnesota.

Initially, our project focused on developing a collaborative agriculture enterprise based on good land stewardship and cultural survival between the Amish, Somali and Indigenous communities in Northern Minnesota. However, over time our project shifted towards researching and documenting the impacts of industrial agriculture practices in the region.

Our project focussed on understanding water use, water regulation and what frameworks existed to protect water rights for Indigenous communities in the United States of America. Similar to Indigenous communities in Canada, the waters of Minnesota are considered sacred to Anishinaabe communities. It is this spiritual and sacred relationship to the water that drives the White Earth Community and AAI’S commitment to protect its waterways and to fight against practices that promote deforestation, excessive drawing on aquifers and the poisoning of drinking water sources with run-offs from pesticides that cause adverse health impacts on local peoples. 

East Round Lake, Minnesota

In our Indigenous health class last year, we learnt about the social determinants of health and learned to draw out the proximal, distal and intermediate determinants of health. In thinking about White Earth, I thought about how important it is to identify the core causes of harm and to focus there as well as on mediating negative impacts in communities. As a highly relational person, I built relationships with a diverse group of individuals during my time in White Earth. During one conversation with a community member, it dawned on me how communities have to build or find expertise in various areas (legal, scientific, historical etc.) to tackle the negative impacts brought by the actions of non-Indigenous outsiders. The burden on these communities is significant given the threats against their land, culture and self-determination, making good allyship even more necessary.

I am grateful to have learned and grown in this project alongside other students from the University of Minnesota's MDP Program. Their knowledge and perspective on Indigenous rights in the USA bridged an essential gap in my understanding. This project has given me confidence in myself and my abilities as a development practitioner in an international context! I am grateful to the MDP program for helping me secure this placement.

Cybersecurity Through Indigenous Lens

By Emeka Ezeh

My name is Emeka Ezeh. I was born and raised in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria. I graduated with a Bachelor’s in International law and diplomacy from Babcock University in Nigeria. I am a second year MDP student at the University of Winnipeg. I am doing my field placement with Brandon University on expanding the knowledge of cybersecurity through an Indigenous lens.

This project entails carrying out a community engagement with First Nations communities in Western Manitoba. The project incorporates knowledge-sharing initiatives with a public audience and an emphasis on cybersecurity. A "Cybersecurity 101" mini-curriculum that will be used in a series of one-hour courses targeted at diverse groups is being developed (these public workshops may include a wide range of participants). The training curriculum includes methods for learning assessment. In an effort to close accessibility gaps for Indigenous communities while working to build lasting, mutually beneficial relationships. We have developed educational and promotional pamphlets, posters, lesson plans, and feedback forms.

My task includes redesigning the pamphlet which contains the engagement of what the project entails. The pamphlet will be a knowledge sharing activities with the public particularly for the Indigenous people. The pamphlet also talks about the initiatives of facilitating Indigenous communities in creating and building relevance within cybersecurity knowledge sharing and education to their cultures and communities with focus on social media as a means of understanding research in cybersecurity.

I have had a great time working with the team and also learning about a new field. In the area of technology, Indigenous communities still have room for growth and advancement. Learning about this field (cybersecurity in particular) made me realize its importance in safeguarding and preserving the data of Indigenous peoples and communities in Canada.

Strengthening the ecosystem for women entrepreneurship in Tamale, Ghana

By Tunde Ogunje

My field placement is with the Northern Sector Action on Awareness Center (NORSAAC), a local NGO in Ghana operating from Tamale in the northern region of the country. I worked with the independent subsidiary of Norsaac called Youth Social Services Organisation (NiV) managing all the sustainable livelihood and social enterprise projects of Norsaac, with other three staff of NiV in a team.

The Projects:

In all, there were three projects we started and which we are still working on. After the orientation and initial meetings with NiV team, we concluded that the short time I had would be well spent if we could focus on advising on the mechanism to upscale and existing revolving fund.  Then, opportunity came for us to respond to an expression of interest (EoI). So, we submitted a grant proposal for a project we called YEESS - Youth Entrepreneurship Education for Secondary Schools. Towards the tail end of the in-person part of the placement, the need arose for us to develop the framework for a strategic plan for the newly built training centre as a potential source of additional revenue for NiV.

In addition to these three main projects, I also facilitated some sessions in the training for potential young, female social entrepreneurs in a project that Norsaac and NiV are managing for Youth Challenge International (YCI), called HerStart. YCI is funded by Global Affairs Canada

My role:

Ukasha Mohammed is the Chief Executive Officer of NiV and works along side both Salim Mohammed and Harriet Anafo. Majorly, I worked more like an advisor or a consultant. While we were all working on these three projects as a team, I was leading the development of ideas, developing the concept papers, creating shared drive using google drive for team members to make real-time inputs, calling for meetings to brainstorm on the ideas and concepts, and making presentations where necessary.

Developing Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks

By Bunmi Afolabi

Hello!

I’m Bunmi Afolabi, rounding up my first year as an MDP student. I am completing my domestic field placement through the University of Winnipeg’s Inner City work-study program. This program involves 450 placement hours and a 6-credit course examining Winnipeg’s inner-city challenges and community-based initiatives.

My placement organization is Newcomer Employment and Education Development Services (N.E.E.D.S Inc.). N.E.E.D.S. is a non-profit, charitable organization that supports the integration of newcomers into Canadian society by providing employment, mentorship, education, and social and recreational programs to assist clients in developing life skills, confidence, and positive social support networks.

I am currently working with the in-house Research and Development team to monitor and evaluate the Settlement Workers in School program (SWIS). This holistic program provides a range of activities to promote the successful settlement and integration of newcomer children and youth in the Winnipeg community. So far, I have developed a Logic Model and an Evaluation Matrix to measure the program's effectiveness in achieving proposed outcomes. I’m currently working on creating evaluation tools to gather data from the field.

This project is vital because Monitoring and evaluation can be used to demonstrate that the programme efforts have been implemented effectively and have had a measurable impact on expected outcomes.

The findings from the evaluation process will be beneficial in identifying the strengths and limitations of the program since its implementation. The results will provide the necessary data to help inform changes that can be made to the program design and delivery to ensure that the program effectively provides the needed support to newcomers in Winnipeg.

Wahkomiwew - Being connected to the People

By Christy Bird

 

Christy and Kaitlyn Murdock 

Boozhoo, Tansi. Christy Bird ndizhnikaaz Peguis/Fisher River indoonji. I am near completion of my time in MDP, and it has been a great learning experience. For my final field placement, I am working under the supervision of Dr. Shailesh Shukla with Fisher River Cree Nation (FRCN) developing a traditional food guide that is reflective of their community. 

My Mom is Cree from Fisher River, and I spent a lot of time with family in Fisher River, so I am very grateful for this opportunity to connect with family and friends and build new relationships with youth in the community. 

As a part of my placement, I have met with several community members that work in the community and have participated in a community event organized by Sharon Monkman from Fisher River Health seeking their inputs in designing traditional food guide project through a written survey. Community members provided useful feedback on potential content of the Fisher River food guide including important and healthy traditional Fisher River food items that should be included in the guide. 

I have also had the opportunity to visit Fisher River High School Land-Based educator Kaitlyn Murdock in their land-based program. In addition, I had the privilege to host two focus groups with youth that attend the program. There are still more interviews with knowledge keepers, youth and elders in the community that need to be completed, but it has been great to put learn and apply community-based research for this important project. 

Our key focus would be to engage local youth and knowledge keepers and build in their voices into their own food guide. We would also like to organize traditional recipe events open to FRCN community members sometime in early August. At the end of the event, we plan to host a community feast to present the traditional food guide to the community. 

Finally, it has been great to be in community, around people, especially after 2 years of virtual learning. Although virtual meetings occur weekly, in person dialogue and community visits are something that I enjoy the most. Miigwech.