When Rosie Whiskeyjack left her home in Saddle Lake Cree Nation in 2021 to come to the 海角社区, the Native Studies student walked into a new world trying to reorganize itself in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Now in her final year of her degree, Whiskeyjack says she finally found her place within the campus community thanks in no small part to a summer internship through the .
“This summer left me rooted in wâhkôhtowin, which is kinship and relationships,” she said. “The experience left me feeling like I belong on campus.”
Conceived in 2020, the program enables First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth to explore career possibilities while they do research in wide-ranging fields such as biology, technology, environmental engineering, policy and law.
Under the supervision of biological sciences professor , her project helped show that a queen bee’s pheromone affects egg size.
“Not only was the work fascinating, but Indigenous cultures are deeply tied to specific land and areas, and doing research on Treaty 6 land allowed me to be rooted in my own.”
Students like Whiskeyjack are being set up for future success thanks to a $5-million investment by the Mastercard Foundation. The 海角社区 will determine the specific programs the gift will support, but all funding will go to areas that respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, with a focus on advancing education for Indigenous youth.
The 海角社区 is one of to support the exceptional contributions of organizations that are elevating Indigenous youth leadership and transforming post-secondary education with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities.
“This investment by Mastercard Foundation will advance the 海角社区's commitment to Indigenous-led initiatives related to teaching, learning, research, community engagement, and building capacity in Indigenous leadership," says Bill Flanagan, 海角社区 president and vice-chancellor.
“This gift supports the journey of reconciliation and the need to build a strong path forward together where First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, researchers and communities thrive and succeed.”
Mainstream post-secondaries will strengthen their relationships with Indigenous communities, demonstrating the impact that is possible when institutions co-develop initiatives with Indigenous community leadership and Indigenous youth.
“We are grateful for this gift from the Mastercard Foundation," says Florence Glanfield, 海角社区 vice-provost (Indigenous programming and research). “The 海角社区 is responding to the TRC’s Calls to Action through programs, research and teaching, amplifying the voices and leadership of First Nations, Inuit and Métis youth and communities. This gift will strongly contribute to the ongoing work.”
Part of that work is helping Indigenous students see possibilities for themselves in a wide variety of careers. Chance Park, a second-year I-STEAM Pathways participant from Kátł’odeeche First Nation in the Northwest Territories, says the program helped him see science as an accessible field he needed to pursue.
“Meeting other Indigenous academics in the field and hearing their stories and struggles helped me overcome my own feelings of nervousness or not feeling good enough,” Park says.
Paired with mentor , a leading researcher on the mountain pine beetle, Park’s basic research project sought to determine whether a fungus, when fed upon by a mite, would release defence pheromones. These pheromones could either inhibit or stimulate growth in a nearby fungus of the same species.
While more research is needed to understand how this knowledge might be used to combat the pine beetle’s destruction, Park says the experience reinforced a central theme of Indigenous knowledge: interconnectedness.
“There’s a pine tree, and then within the pine tree, there’s a beetle that attacks the tree, and on the beetle, there’s a fungus and a mite, and then within the mite, there’s nematodes,” he explains. “That structure keeps on going to a microscopic level until almost nothing. You begin to see how everything is connected.”
, program co-founder and a Māori professor in the Faculty of Education, adds that six years into the program, 93 future leaders have completed the four-month summer program.
“In offering Indigenous undergraduate students the opportunity to experience active environmental research under the mentorship of highly experienced researchers, the program opens pathways to areas of study, research and future careers that Indigenous undergraduate students often don’t see as a possibility,” she says. “We wish we could take more each year. Witnessing the transformation that occurs in students’ lives is incredibly rewarding.”
The Mastercard Foundation’s investment builds on its EleV Program, which works with more than 65 partners across Canada to support 100,000 Indigenous youth to achieve post-secondary education and transition to meaningful work by 2030. Founded in 2017, EleV has committed more than $500 million to transform education and employment in service of Indigenous youth to be living a good life, Mino Bimaadiziwin in the Anishinaabe language.
“The 海角社区 has shown deep institutional commitment to both truth and reconciliation,” says Jennifer Brennan, senior director of Canada programs at the Mastercard Foundation.
“We made a commitment to young Indigenous people that we would walk alongside them to transform post-secondary education in ways that support them to live a good life. This exemplary organization is contributing to that change and to a stronger country for us all.”