Lessons from the West

By Lisa Dixon, 1st year MDP student

As I sit in my room writing this last blog, I’m feeling very reflective. While going into the placement I certainly had learning goals, I don’t think I necessarily had clear expectations. I’m fairly certain though, that any expectations I did have were exceeded. I’m grateful for the mish-mash of experiences I received during a jam-packed 12 weeks. Since my last post, there has been lots of work and even more events and I cannot believe I’ve been able to participate in as much as I have. 

Since my last post, Margaret and I began work in Saddle Lake Cree Nation, a community with almost 8,000 Band members. It has been a learning experience working in the community. The people have been fantastic but the issues the community face are staggering. There are times Margaret and I have been talking and both get frustrated because there are things to be done but nothing seems to be moving. But these are the realities in many communities and a 12-week field placement is not going to give us the time to see project/initiatives really move along. However, with that, I’m really happy to have had the experience working in Saddle Lake because the experience was invaluable and the lessons learned about working within community/political systems was something you have to experience.

 

Joe Stern (L), Winston Lapatak (Saddle Lake Economic Development Director), Margaret and Lisa

Prior to my placement I had hoped to learn more about the realities of the oil industry.  Up until my time in Alberta I had only read about the affects of oil development on the Indigenous communities in Alberta.  Like many people I was profoundly affected by the experience of communities like the Lubicon Cree.  Well I can certainly say my goal of learning more about the realities of this industry were met. In Alberta, oil is never far from the conversation. One event that I was really sorry to have missed out on was the Healing Walk that took place in Fort McMurray. There was not a week where there were not news stories about oil spills in the region. In July, Cold Lake, which is about an hour and a half away from Blue Quills, has been dealing with oil spills that have continued to do damage to the land.  Oil is also a particularly prominent topic in terms of Indigenous development in Alberta. For many people, this is viewed as the only real opportunity for development.  But there are those at Blue Quills that have the “radical” idea that there is development outside of oil. I was happy to be around people who had a similar view of oil development that I did. Some communities have done a lot of good work from revenue from oil development but it has also destroyed other communities.  This can’t be the only answer for Indigenous development and it was nice to see many were looking outside of oil for development options.

I had an absolute blast during my time at Blue Quills First Nations College and while leaving was without a doubt hard, I am comforted with the firm believe that one day I will be back!

Margaret (L), Lana Whiskey Jack (C) and Lisa (R)

Business experience, definitely an asset for a Development Practitioner

By Alejandro Dominguez-Suberbie, 2nd year MDP student

One of many of the activities that we MDP students (Alejandro Dominguez-Suberbie, Susan Maxson, and Ian Toal) did during our placement in Mexico was organizing with RITA a field visit to the state of Hidalgo, where one of the members of RITA, the Red Hñahñu is located. The main objective of the field trip was to get to know this member of the network and their tourism projects. Also, we wanted to conduct an assessment and provide feedback on the organizational and marketing capacity of  Red Hñahñu. This would be beneficial to both the organization and to the Indigenous Tourism directors at RITA.

After the field visit, the three of us designed and implemented a working session with members of the Red Hñahñu. The members requested that the meeting would focus on marketing.

Overall, we saw that the products and services needed more development and testing in order to find the proper market for them. Signage, was a very important topic. A comment underlined the importance of signage, was one that Susan Maxson made “you will never know about the potential customers who have gotten lost on the way to your business." 

We also talked about product development and testing, marketing strategies, and the target market.

At the end of the meeting we passed out a questionnaire related to the communication project we were working on simultaneously regarding RITA’s monthly newsletter. This questionnaire include three questions:

What information do you want to receive from RITA?

What information do you want to receive from other members?

What information do you want to share in the newsletter?

We presented these results to RITA’s board and the project was approved.

Northern Exposure

By Naomi Happychuk, 1st year MDP student

With my practicum coming to an end I have to say, that it has truly been an incredible summer. I learned so much, gaining practical experience, and building on my passion for northern development. Working with the Northern Sustainable Development Initiative in the city, I had the opportunity to attend various conferences and workshops and hear perspectives from a number of First Nations chiefs and Elders, government administrators, the Metis community, and private industries, particularly at the round table on “Models and Best Practices of Northern Development” we had organized in June.  I gained valuable skills in researching, writing, communication, and administration. I came to better understand the complexities of Indigenous Development in Canada.

Beluga Whale, Churchill, Manitoba

Travelling to Churchill, Manitoba and Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, was an incredible way to end my practicum.  This was an opportunity to form my own perspective on development in the north and to experience first-hand, much of what I had been researching. Churchill was a great introduction to the north and I met with the Community Administrative and Economic Development Officer, the President of Churchill Chamber of Commerce, the Executive Director of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, and the Superintendent of Parks Canada in Manitoba’s north. I also toured the port, which is the primary source of economic revenue for the town, took in some history at Dene Village and the Prince of Wales Fort, and even saw some spectacular wildlife including tundra swans, beluga whales, and polar bears!  

Rankin inlet, Nunavut

In Rankin Inlet, I felt I truly got a taste of the north. This town on the west coast of Hudson Bay, with sparse vegetation over rocky outcrops and valleys of tundra is home to about 2500 people, most of who are Inuit and speak Inuktitut. In this community, which has long been sustained by mining, exploration and surveying is abundant. Sled dogs would howl loudly and I had just missed the passing of a large caribou herd, a staple traditional food for people of the area. I also had the opportunity to visit an old Thule site, with dozens of tent rings, meat caches, kayak racks, and fox traps all made of stone. Again I met with various community members and learned more of the challenges and opportunities of development in the north. 

Naomi on a tour of a grain elevator in Churchill with Randy Spence

From these trips I was reminded of the need for more action to be stimulated from all of the meaningful discourse and thorough studies, and of the need for development in the north to come from the north with the support of southern entities, and not the other way around. This has been an incredible summer of learning and insight, as a development practitioner and as a Canadian.

Women Sustain Families in Upper West Region of Ghana

By Douglas Baba, 1st year MDP student

The International Field Placement of the Master’s in Development Practice Programme in Indigenous Development took the three of us: Douglas, Megan and Reuben to the Upper West region of Ghana. The Upper West region which was created in 1983 from the Upper East is the youngest in Ghana. Most of the people belong to a tribe called Waala, who are predominantly Muslims and well-known for their hospitality and their locally brewed beer called pito.  Pito is made by the Waala women through laborious processes. The men are usually seen sitting under shady trees in Wa Municipality sipping their mild or alcoholic pito. This activity by the women groups forms part of a major economic livelihood support for many families in Wa Municipality and its environs. 

Dry season pepper harvest

Shea nuts processing into Shea Butter which is a seasonal economic activity is also mainly done by women in a traditional way. The fruits containing the nuts are picked from the bush and then dried for some days before they are boiled. They are further dried before they are manually cracked to remove the nuts from the shell. The nuts are then sent to the corn mail for grinding and then finally boiled to remove the Shea butter from the mixture. Women are also at the forefront of dry season farming using water from the dams or dug outs in all the dams dug outs communities we visited. They grow especially vegetables such as pepper, okra, garden eggs, and tomatoes.

The women in Wa Municipality work hard to get their families running economically. A trip to one of the villages in the Wa Municipality called Leggou where there is ongoing dam rehabilitation sponsored by the World Bank and under the supervision of Ghana Irrigation Development Authority. The project is called work for money programme where all those who participate get six cedis a day. Sometimes in some communities they do what is known as work for food where participants are given two meals a day. In all these programmes operating in the communities we visited women were at the forefront doing all kinds work relating to dam construction.

We spent close to three hours n Leggou and only women were spotted working at the site. When asked about the men the answer was that they came there early in the morning and they had all left by the time we got there around 10:00am. Some of the women were scooping the sand from the ground; others were shoveling while the rest were carrying the sand to the places where the embankments were being raised. The most amazing thing was seeing women in their 60s, 70s and even 80s manually doing the hardening of the embankments by patting with sticks while at the same time singing patriotic songs rhythmically to keep them working.

The women were doing all this hard work under scorching sun and teeming heat and some of them with their babies either tied at their backs or placed under trees with all the risks involved including snake or scorpion bites while working in order to get six Ghanian Cedis a day to feed their families. It is therefore very sad and worrying that despite all this hard work to keep their families running, most development agencies fail to either consider or include women in their poverty reduction strategies.  Women should therefore be given key roles to play in rural communities by development agencies if extreme poverty is to be eradicated among indigenous communities.

Baraka (Thank you)