Empowering Communities to Resist and Revitalize at ELP

By Jackie Dormer, 2nd year MDP student

This summer, I have been working at the Endangered Languages Project (ELP) as a Summer Intern. ELP is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization focused on supporting the revitalization of Indigenous and endangered languages around the world through resource development, mentorship, training and learning opportunities, and advocacy.

One of the projects I am currently working on is an organizational growth resource for grassroots organizations involved in language revitalization. This is something that community members have expressed a need for, and something that resonated with me, as someone who co-organizes a community-based collective. This resource includes information about how organizations can engage in strategic planning, how and when to incorporate their organization as a non-profit, and where to find and how to apply for funding. It provides insights into data sovereignty and using technology responsibly, as well as how to build community in a good way. It also highlights some things to look out for and avoid, like predatory funders, mission drift, and vaguely worded MOUs.

ELP has also just released a response to a recent article published by The New Yorker entitled “Sometimes It’s O.K. to Let a Language Die.” The article was highly disappointing as the author perpetuates many harmful colonial narratives about languages and argues that some languages aren't worth revitalizing. Being able to contribute to this response was empowering, as it is often difficult to take the time and energy to respond to these types of publications. With ELP’s directors Amanda and Anna leading this response, along with the ELP staff contributing, I am reminded that there is power in our resistance and our collective voices, especially considering the massive public response and support we’ve received. 

Working with a team of people with such diverse backgrounds and skillsets who all share a common passion for language revitalization has been so rewarding and inspiring. I'm excited to continue contributing in a contract role throughout the remainder of the 2026–27 fiscal year and to keep building on everything I've learned.

Anna Belew, Executive Director (Top) and Jackie Dormer (Below)

Walking Beside the Mhuysqa in Sesquilé

By Rayna Daniels, 2nd year MDP student

When I first arrived in Sesquilé, a small town in Cundinamarca, Colombia, I knew my Master’s in Development Practice placement would be an opportunity to learn. What I did not expect was how it would change me. Working with Dr. Gabriel Nemogá, our focus has been on Indigenous tourism, exploring ideas and funding that could support the community while honoring Mhuysqa traditions and values. My part of the project has been to analyze a tourism proposal for Sesquilé, compare it with examples from other places, and suggest ways it can strengthen the community.

But the real lessons have come outside the research. The Mhuysqa people have welcomed me into their homes and ceremonies like the temazcal, hoska, and kozmuy where I have learned about spirituality, resilience, and the connection between culture and land. Everyday practices such as gardening, bird watching, and orchid conservation have shown me how environmental stewardship is an important part of daily life.

L-R: Rayna Daniels, Tamara Dionne Stout, Leslie Kirkness, Gabriel Nemogá,, Katherine Castillo & Facundo Saravia

Life in Sesquilé has challenged me to grow in unexpected ways. Learning Spanish has been difficult, but each conversation brings progress and connection. Sharing meals of arepas, ajiaco, and bandeja paisa has opened doors to friendship and laughter. With the support of my colleague Leslie Kirkness, I have built strong relationships and discovered that respect and collaboration are at the heart of meaningful development work.

I have also come to appreciate how tourism, when guided by community voices, can be more than an economic activity. It can be a way of honoring traditions, protecting the land, and creating opportunities that align with local values. Watching how the Mhuysqa blend spirituality, environment, and community together has improved how I think about development itself.

As my time in Sesquilé comes to a close, I see how much it has changed me for the better. Working alongside Dr. Nemogá, learning from the Mhuysqa, and living close to the land have taught me that development is not just about projects or proposals. It is about listening, humility, and walking beside the community as they pave the path forward. 

L-R: Rayna Daniels, Lyda Mamanché, Gabriel Nemogá, Tamara Dionne Stout, & Leslie Kirkness

First Nations Waste Minimization

By Mohamed “Mo” Crossman-Serb, 1st year MDP student

Taanshi, my name is Mo (he/him), I am a Libyan-Metis who was born and raised in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 and the homeland of the Red River Metis. This summer I am lucky to do my local field placement at the First Nations Waste Minimization (FNWM) team at the Green Action Centre. FNWM works to support First Nation community initiatives at reducing waste such as increasing recycling, composting programs and community awareness. My role for the summer is the community engagement coordinator.

This role has me doing a multitude of tasks. I develop and deliver school presentations on waste minimization for both urban and in-community First Nation students. Promote and distribute Protecting Mother Earth for the Next Generation Activity Booklets. Developing the 2023-2024 RISE Webinar series, we ran our first one in June on an introduction to waste minimization. I was also lucky to work on the ground with the pathfinder team, going to landfills in communities across the province to help with their vital work.

The position had me travel to six different First Nation communities so far across Manitoba where I made new relationships and saw many friends from previous travels. I look forward to staying on with the team on a part-time basis over the school year!

 

Walking in my Gradfather's Footsteps

By Alex Keone Kapuni Oldroyd, 2nd year MDP student

There’s an oft-told story in my family history about how one day my grandfather was convinced by a friend to take the entrance exam to Kamehameha Schools, whose main campus was on a neighboring island. I imagine that like most young boys, the idea of spending free time taking a test was not attractive, except this test came with free lunch. For a boy who often went hungry, a full belly was worth the trouble. To my grandfather’s surprise, he passed the exam. I imagine it was a difficult decision for him to leave home and enroll at the faraway school, but decades later we’re still talking about the impact of this small moment on his life and ours.

When I consider my grandfather’s life and legacy, I’m often struck by all the interesting twists and turns. Today he’s buried in a tiny Mormon town in the middle of the Kaibab Paiute Reservation in Northern Arizona of all places. When he left for school as a boy, could he have imagined all the places he’d see and people he’d meet?  Could he have imagined that one day he would become a principal for that school? Was he always confident that the decisions he made would lead to good things, or like the rest of us did he struggle with fear of the unknown?

A little over two years ago my wife and I struggled with our own decision to attend a school far from home. We had to decide between UCLA, where I could study with one of the top Indigenous economists in the world and my wife could fulfill her dream of working in the animation industry in California, and the University of Winnipeg where I could learn directly from Indigenous elders and community organizers and where the education was much more grassroots. We chose Canada. I have no regrets about that decision, but especially during this pandemic we’ve wondered if we should have made the what some would consider the “safer” choice.

I’m not sure if there will be any moments from my life that my descendants point to and say, “that’s when things really changed for us.” But there are certainly moments where I feel like I’ve been guided by my Creator and my ancestors. My field placement this summer with Kamehameha Schools has been one of those moments. When I started in the MDP program, I hadn’t intended to follow so closely in my grandfather’s footsteps, but here I am.

This summer I’ve researched the state of the COVID-19 vaccination effort in the US and statewide and how it should inform KS policy, economic measures of wellbeing, and best practices in early childhood education funding. I’ve conducted and published online environmental scans in the areas of education, health, economics, and community and politics. I’ve been an integral part of the planning team that will help transition KS’s Strategy and Transformation Department into a permanent hybrid work arrangement post-pandemic. This is just some of the work I’m fortunate to accomplished during my time at KS, which will have both immediate and long-term impact.

This work hasn’t always been easy. With the pandemic, school obligations, family obligations, and the uncertainty that comes at the end of grad school, there have been many times I’ve felt discouraged. In those moments, I’ve tried to remember that the path I walk today is the path my grandfather walked and our ancestors before him. Hearkening to the past in that way has given me courage to face the future, and the optimism to know that as I prepare to graduate there are many more paths my ancestors, my relations, my Creator, and my grandfather have prepared for me. 

The Land Gives You What You Need

By Sarah DeLaronde, 1st year MDP student

I think the most beautiful part of the pandemic was learning to pivot. For my virtual practicum, I had the amazing opportunity to work with the Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom Centre (IKWC) in Edmonton, Alberta. I  was able to create content for social media, review and edit treaty kit documents and do a literature review that focused on land based education. It was interesting though, as my workspace changed to suit the needs of my children,

I found myself going back to the land. I was able to do research, write, respond to email in my various home territories. It was essential to balance my life and sacrifice some things in order to accomplish everything I needed to. Going back to the land gave me the teachings I needed to hear to do my research in a good way. I sat and listened to the Sundance Chief at the Turtle Lodge and the importance of being connected to the land to be whole. I recognized how my spirit was revived every time my feet touched the soil and the beautiful clear waters. I saw the joy of my children as they were reintroduced to their homelands. 

The lessons I learnt included lessons I wasn’t looking for but that I needed to hear. Being able to pivot and change my workspace. Learning to be more flexible with my time and learn to adjust to get the work done. The importance of showing up and listening (even if it means virtually). I would’ve liked to experience the lands of Treaties 6, 7 and 8 that IKWC works with however I do appreciate being able to complete my practicum and be reintroduced to my home territories. The land gave me what I needed for my research, she takes care of me.

Shifts and Changes

By Sarah DeLaronde, 1st year MDP student

My practicum with the Indigenous Knowledge and Wisdom Centre (IKWC) was so inspiring. Being able to create social media content really shifted the way I think about social media. Social media can be used to catapult Indigenous businesses, organizations into the spotlight. Creating content for social media can be complicated; you have to choose what would be most appealing, simple and easy to read. Academic language shouldn’t be used as it would make the content inaccessible for people outside of academia and wouldn’t translate well into a social media post. Taking time everyday to focus on posts and thinking about what would be most aesthetically pleasing really worked well for me. I utilized my experience as a traditional maker to choose the right colours. 

Lastly, I also did some research on content creation to create the most effective posts. Social media can be utilized to get information out quicker and to a larger audience. By bringing attention to IKWC as a whole, more people would be able to get involved with the organization and they could, in turn, take on more work and improve their communities in this way. IKWC’s goal is to preserve knowledge so it can be carried forward to the next generations. Social media can reach the right age groups where youth start to self determine and become interested in who they are. Social media is truly innovative tool that I hope to improve on as I move forward through MDP. I would like to eventually do more social media content creation as a means to teach youth about their cultures.  

 

An international placement during a global pandemic: lessons learned

By Kate Robb, 2nd year MDP student

 

One of the requirements to graduate from the MDP program is an international field placement. In March 2020, when we began to experience the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had no idea just how much my studies would be impacted. Fast forward to this year, it began to seem more and more unlikely that my colleagues and I would get to undertake our field placements in person, let alone internationally. While it was obviously a disappointment, I know it was the right decision to stick to remote/local placements this year. Especially as I wasn’t eligible for my first vaccine until a few weeks after my placement started, it would have been irresponsible to travel for something that could be completed from the safety of my own home. Luckily, thanks to the internet, I was still able to connect and work with an organization outside of Canada and fulfill the international placement requirement.

 

Now that I have finished my placement, I can reflect on the experience of working for an organization located over 4,000km away from me. Overall, the experience was more successful that I could have expected, and I learned some skills that I wouldn’t have had I done the placement in person.

 

My top three lessons learned from an international placement from home are:

 

1)      Time Management: I’ve always had pretty good time management skills, but working from home requires a whole new level of it. It’s so easy to lose track of time and get distracted by household tasks or other non-work-related things when you aren’t in a dedicated workspace. A year of zoom university definitely helped prepare me, but shifting to working a full-time job from home was an adjustment. I got used to it and figured out what works best for me, and now I can confidently say that I can work well and productively from pretty much anywhere.

 

2)      The Power of the Internet: Although we had a pretty good understanding of how useful the internet is before the pandemic, I don’t think we had any idea just how easy it is to work remotely before we had no choice but to do so. I didn’t really know what to expect when I signed up to work with people who are in Alaska while I am in Winnipeg, but thanks to the internet, I now truly believe I could work with people located anywhere in the world with little difficulty. The team I was working with made really effective use of online tools like Google Calendar to make sure everyone was on the same page and could work collaboratively despite the distance. This experience has shown me just how much of an inequity it is that so many people living in rural and remote areas don’t have access to reliable and high-speed internet.

 

3)      Communication is Key: Despite having access to the internet and all of its tools, strong communication skills are still required to be successful in working remotely. My team had multiple zoom meetings a week which helped us all to stay on track, help each other out, and build relationships despite being in different places. It is easy just to rely on email for everything, but often it can be easier and faster to solve a problem when communicating face-to-face. Not only that, but regular meetings can help make people feel like part of a team and reduce the isolation effects of working from home.

 

All in all, while I wish I could have travelled to Alaska this summer to work in person, I am grateful that my virtual placement was such a success. As we are likely to continue with some variation of work-from-home into the future, I will take the best practices I’ve learned this summer forward to any virtual workplaces I find myself in going forward.