Wellbeing 4 Winnipeg

 By Kate Rempel, 1st year MDP student

Through my placement with the Winnipeg Boldness Project, I have had the opportunity to receive leadership training through the Burns Leadership Institute Canada President’s Student Leadership Program (PSLP) at the University of Manitoba.  As part of our program requirement, we complete a group project by creating partnerships with value aligned organizations, bringing our idea from the planning stage into implementation in a matter of weeks.  Our group is called Wellbeing 4 Winnipeg (W4W) and we have successfully partnered with Mount Carmel Clinic to host community engagement sessions aiming to provide community led lower barrier mental health recommendations. 

My placement at the Winnipeg Boldness Project has provided a variety of opportunities for me to use the skills I have developed through the MDP program.  It is one thing to learn and write about the concepts in the classroom but seeing how the values and methods interact in the field has proven fundamental to my educational journey.  The PSLP provided a hands-on experience to implement the relationship building Boldness is built upon, really deepening my understanding of how relationships develop and interconnect across the Point Douglas community.  I found the work I have been doing has built my confidence as a development practitioner, recognizing how to use my voice to strengthen my values and how my knowledge can guide those from other disciplines in their work.   

The two biggest take-aways from my placement have been:

 (1) the importance in this work of surrounding yourself with a network of support that shares your values and goals.  The work can be draining when you find yourself fighting the same barriers, facing racism, and dealing with systems that need foundational changes.  You need a supportive team of people to inspire and reinvigorate you.  Finally, we often face the question in the field of what method works better.  Do we create new systems or fix the existing ones? 

(2) I have learned that we need both, only by taking both paths can we achieve our goals.

 

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.