Participatory Cultures Lab (2024). The Trail of Promising Practices for Indigenous Youth-led Social Change. McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
acknowledgments
We are grateful to the young people, in all their diversity, in Eskasoni, Mi’kmaw Nation (Unama’ki, Nova Scotia), Rankin Inlet (Kangiqliniq, ᑲᖏᕿᓂᖅ, Nunavut), and Treaty 6 (the Homeland of the Métis, Saskatchewan) as well as their community leaders, families, and academic supporters for sharing their stories and artwork. Working together, and apart, across these groups and communities has enabled us to think through the most critical aspects of youth-led and adult- supported community research.
We acknowledge the many territories upon which this work was thought through and conducted with the lands and waters that are now called Canada. We also acknowledge the intergenerational relationships that made this work possible. The ideas and resources presented in this Trail owe inspiration to the generations of girls and young women and their allies that came before us. We hope that this work may continue to support the generations of girls and young women and their allies to come.
Specifically, we are grateful to numerous individuals who made this work possible. Thank you to Jennifer Altenberg, Sarah Flicker, Linda Liebenberg, Jennica Alhda Barcial, and Marnina Gonick for their ongoing work supporting youth groups. Thank you also to the many students, interns, and research assistants who worked with the More Than Words project, and who were involved in various aspects of developing and showcasing these Promising Practices. A special thanks to Emily Booker for her commitment to the project and organic evaluation. The Trail was developed as a collaborative publication with key contributions from Emily Booker, Leann Brown, and Jen Thompson. We are so grateful to Gabrielle Giroux, Encore Graphics, for her thoughtful design work on this and many other project publications. More Than Words was supported by Women and Gender Equality Canada.
CONNECT
If you join us on the Trail by implementing any of these Promising Practices, please share updates with the More Than Words team.
CLAUDIA MITCHELL Principal Investigator
CLAUDIA.MITCHELL@MCGILL.CA
LEANN BROWN Project Coordinator
Introduction
This guide showcases a Trail of Promising Practices for engaging with Indigenous youth to address critical issues in their communities through arts-based methods. Drawing on ongoing work addressing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) with and by Indigenous girls and young women in Canada, this Trail explores the complexity of youth-centred spaces where Indigenous youth are supported to address specific issues of SGBV as well as other forms of violence in their lives and communities.
Youth-centered spaces are ever-important across global contexts impacted by legacies of colonial systems and violence, which typically distribute power unevenly, for example according to gender, age, and Indigeneity. In Canada, settler colonialism has been well documented at the core of issues related to SGBV impacting Indigenous women and girls. Recognizing the historical and ongoing impacts of colonialism and colonial violence on Indigenous youth and their communities, this guide draws on trauma-informed and Survivor-led practices. Some may see this work as decolonial or decolonizing and others might focus on healing and building community. Adding to extensive work with young people around the world, these Promising Practices ground specific approaches for engaging with Indigenous youth through culture and ceremony as well as through dynamic power-sharing in order to counter the harms of colonialism and to contribute to the growth of positive cultural identities, increased connection to community, and resilience.
In particular, these Promising Practices draw on evidence of the successes of arts-based approaches in placing young people as critical knowers, makers, and actors in envisioning, revisioning, and enacting social change. These practices are critical for centring Indigenous youth voices and leadership in pursuit of creating communities where Indigenous youth can thrive.
“The more I said, the more I was heard, and the more I was heard, it made me want to speak louder and louder... that’s when my voice became so much stronger.”
Hannah Battiste
BREAK THE SILENCE, ESKASONI
Where
does this trail of promising practices come from?
The Promising Practices in this guide emerge from the work of Indigenous girls and young women, in all their diversity, together with their adult supporters in Canada, more specifically in Eskasoni Mi’kmaw Nation (Unama’ki, Nova Scotia), Rankin Inlet (Kangiqliniq, ᑲᖏᕿᓂᖅ, Nunavut), and Treaty 6 (the Homeland of the Métis, Saskatchewan) as part of the More Than Words project and in some cases as part of its predecessor project Networks4Change. This Trail shares the guiding principles of their work, how these principles were transformed into practice, and examples of the evidence of impact that these practices have generated. Indigenous boys and young men were also at times involved in this work, however the project remained intentionally girl-led. The Promising Practices presented in this guide reflect these tensions in the gender dynamics of this work.
is this Trail of Promising Practices for?
This guide is for individuals or groups who wish to engage with young Indigenous people to address social justice issues such as SGBV in their communities using the arts. We hope this Trail of Promising Practices supports youth and their adult allies in creating spaces within their communities and beyond that are safe for Indigenous youth and their peers to lead work and create art that responds to their needs and interests.
More Than Words Dialogue event set the initial intentions for the project regarding the role of adults in the work, the place of evaluation in the project and the goals for community action and resources (McGill University, 2019).
Why
create a trail of promising practices?
The term Trail comes from a discussion at a More Than Words Dialogue event in 2019 about how to capture and share what we learn together throughout the project. During this discussion, imagery of trails imprinted on the land that provide guidance and direction based on where ancestors have previously walked, resonated with the group. This Trail provides a guide for more communities to take-up similar work engaging with young Indigenous people and other youth to address SGBV and social change.
This group, program, project. Taught me a lot about myself and What important values to hold
It gave me the opportunity to spread my wings and try new activities and grow with a bunch of beautiful young women.
It also helped show me my passion for crafting things, painting, knitting, crocheting, beading, that list can go on.
I’ve gained so many great memories and friends that no matter what happens we will all try to help each other, no matter what.
It also helped me realize it’s okay to trust again and to love. This group helped me heal and be more alive than who I was before.
My family is a big part of the healing journey.
Wela’lin
1 From the 2021 book, Circle Back: Stories of reflection, connection, and transformation, edited by youth participants from the Networks 4 Change project, Hannah Battiste (Eskasoni, Canada), Andraya Daniels (Treaty 6, Canada), and Bonwie Maome (Eastern Cape, South Africa).
Indigenous Youth-Led Work to Address SGBV More Than Words:
“I saw young leaders, very young, starting their early journey in their skills of developing artwork, their vibrant communications and leadership roles.”
BROWN ADULT ALLY OF GET ART ; ELDER AND FORMER MAYOR OF RANKIN INLET
LEVINIA
More Than Words was a 4-year project (2019-2023) focused on exploring and learning from Indigenous-focused youth-led Survivor engagement in addressing SGBV through the arts, as part of the Department for Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) Gender-Based Violence program Promising Practices to Support Survivors and their Families. More Than Words builds on the research, relationships, and networks developed through Networks 4 Change: Girl-led from the Ground-up Policy Making to Address Sexual Violence in Canada and South Africa (Networks4Change) where youth-led activism against SGBV with Indigenous girls and young women in Canada was supported alongside community advocacy of Indigenous and Black girls and young women in rural South Africa.
More Than Words continues this work with girls and young women and their adult allies in three communities in Canada: Eskasoni, Mi’kmaw Nation (Unama’ki, Nova Scotia), Rankin Inlet (Kangiqliniq, ᑲᖏᕿᓂᖅ, Nunavut), and Treaty 6 (the Homeland of the Métis, Saskatchewan). To support and amplify youth-led work in these communities and beyond, More Than Words draws on network of relationships between and among Indigenous youth, community leaders, Elders, knowledge keepers, project coordinators and administrators, researchers, academics, and other individuals and groups with shared interests and goals. These partnerships include research-funded community-academic partnerships where youth, their families, and community leaders know and have important relationships with university-based implementation teams. These complex relationships help to create spaces for the work in community to be aligned with cultural values and protocols, and for youth-led work to take place and be supported by adult allies.
“As urban Indigenous teens, we come together from many different nations and communities to combat genderbased and colonial violence. We do this work by engaging in
cultural reclamation, ceremony, storytelling and arts-based activism and
research.”
“There are going to be things you go through and things you see that will change your life alone with your perspective. I’ve seen so much in my life that opened my eyes to things I didn’t think existed. The best thing I ever did for myself was to educate myself and learn to have compassion and empathy for others. You can find inspiration everywhere and anywhere...”
2 From YIWU’S group bio from Indspire
3 Excerpt from Hannah Battiste’s (2022) book of poetry, Out of Darkness: A Poetic Journey through Trauma, published by iUniverse.
More Than Words project symbolizes action (not just words), and also refers to the significance of images and art as critical entry points to reflection and meaning-making. The logo was designed by Indigenous designer, Gabrielle Giroux of Encore Graphics, a proud Déné woman from Hatchet Lake First Nation.
Gender Dynamics in addressing sgbv:
Girls and young women? 2SLGBTQIA+ youth? Boys and young men?
“In the beginning I knew nothing about GBV, like absolutely nothing about it. But after all the sessions I know now how to have healthy relationships. I understand how colonial violence continues to hurt Indigenous people, especially young girls and women. I can see it now.”
Kalan Kakum 4
YOUNG INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S UTOPIA, TREATY 6
The youth group work of More Than Words adopted a gendered approach which, at the outset, may appear binary. The project prioritized the voices of girls and young women, in all their diversity, and we honour the self-identification of all participants. Female and femme identifying youth are represented in the work of More Than Words together with non-binary and 2-spirit participants. More often than not, the More Than Words youth groups welcomed young men belonging to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community into the group with designated ‘safe’ status by the girls and young women.
4 From YIWU’s 2019 self-published book, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia.
“They
started out as a girls group but we kind of moved from using the term ‘girl’ to ‘youth’ because some of the youth are non-binary and don’t identify as girls.”
Zachary Mandamin
YOUNG INDIGENOUS RESEARCHER COLLABORATING WITH YIWU
Central to the work of the youth groups has been explorations of colonial gender norms and binaries as well as pre-colonial approaches to gender, gendered traditions, and ceremony. In some instances, cis-gendered boys and young men also participated in project activities at specific moments when the youth groups wanted boys and young men to be there.
Pathways2Equity project:
Working with boys and young men
Responding to this need for more work addressing SGBV with cis-gendered boys and men, More Than Words has a ‘little brother’ project; Pathways2Equity (also funded by WAGE, 2021-2023) that takes up gender transformative work with boys and young men and in ways that are informed by girl and young women. Lessons learned from Pathways2Equity is forthcoming.
“I think it’s really important, especially with Indigenous men… we need to teach these men that ‘You’re worth it. You are good enough. You’re allowed to cry. You are allowed to be anything you want to be. You’re allowed to be human.’ … I want the men in Eskasoni to know, the young guys, that you can be involved and it’s OK to be involved. Maybe even older men need to step up.”
The work of More Than Words and Pathways2Equity builds on the SSHRC-IDRC Partnership; Networks for Change and Well-being: Girl-led ‘from the ground up’ policymaking to address sexual violence in Canada and South Africa Networks4Change laid the foundation for collaboration and successful partnering through skills and capacity building with Indigenous young people to support their response to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in their own communities through arts-based approaches.
2014
Black rural girls and young women in South Africa and Indigenous girls and young women in Canada uniting through arts-based activism to address SGBV.
2019
Indigenous girls in communities in Canada using artsbased methods and mentorship/auntieship to address SGBV and support survivors.
2021
Girl-informed work engaging boys and young men in Ranklin Inlet, Eskasoni, and Treaty 6 in the effort to end SGBV in communities.
eskasoni: break the silence; be the change
Eskasoni is located on Cape Breton Island, within the Unama’gi district of Mi’kmaw territory (Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada). Young people in the community have been engaging with the topic of SGBV and what it looks like in Eskasoni since 2014. The work of this youth group, named Break the Silence; Be the Change, has manifested through a number of arts-based projects, as shown below. Culture and language revitalization are key concerns of youth as they recognise how these are tied so innately to wellness and self-love.
Examples from the work of break the silence; be the change
Public mural titled ‘KO’QMANAQ’ to represent findings from the Spaces & Places research project (2016). The mural focuses on the importance of family, culture, and holistic learning to support youth talents.
Memorial garden honouring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and residential school Survivors (2020). The interactive and educational community space is dedicated to ceremony, healing, and community gatherings.
Mi’kmaw colouring book for Survivors of SGBV (2018). Youth transformed traditional teachings into artwork. The colouring book is used by service providers in three Atlantic provinces in Canada.
Rankin Inlet: get art
GIRLS EXPRESSING
THEMSELVES THROUGH ART
Rankin Inlet or Kangiqliniq, ᑲᖏᕿᓂᖅ, meaning deep bay, is an Inuit community located on the Kudlulik Peninsula, on the west coast of the Hudson Bay in Nunavut. It is the second largest community in Nunavut with a population of 3,000. This youth group grew out of a recognition in the community for the need to create spaces where local Inuit girls and young women could come together and express themselves creatively. The group in Rankin Inlet, called Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art), have embraced the production of traditional and visual arts such as sewing, collage, zine making, music videos, and cellphilms (short videos on mobile devices) to address topics like GBV, bullying, and food insecurity. Cultural connection is key to GET Art and women leaders (often Elders and artists) from the community are invited to take part in activities and share aspects of Inuit traditions, such as katajjaq (throat singing), kakiniit (traditional tattoos), and other cultural activities.
Examples from the work of get art
ᐊᑭᐊᒃ. Akiak. Brave by GET Art (2024). Youth mentors co-led a collage-making workshop with younger youth. The resulting collages were compiled in a zine, which was printed and shared with the girls
Top Photo: Elders and artists from the community are involved in GET Art programs as guest speakers and art-making facilitators. Knowledge Keeper, Rosie Ussak supports a felting workshop as part of a GET Art after-school program (2024). Bottom Photo: At one of GET Art’s workshops “Marks of Belonging”, participants learn about traditional Inuit tattooing practices kakiniit. In the workshop, the girls practice making temporary/washable tattoos with traditional and contemporary markings (2021).
treaty 6: young indigenous women’s utopia
Treaty 6, the Traditional Homeland of the Métis, Saskatoon, is the home of Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU). This girl group was created in response to the colonial and gendered violence that Indigenous girls and young women experience daily in inner city Saskatoon. Prayer and ceremony are at the centre of YIWU’s gatherings, where youth are empowered by each other and their Nehiwayan and Michif ways. These young women explore self-love as a first form of resistance through activities like cellphilming, authorship, dance, and muralmaking. YIWU have collaborated on two self-published books which have been circulated widely and members of the group have travelled extensively to deliver presentations, speak at conferences, and connect with other youth groups across North America. YIWU are recipients of the 2020 Indspire Guiding the Journey: Indigenous Educator Award.
Examples from the work of yiwu
YIWU’s second book in collaboration with young Anishnaabe Indigenous researcher Zachary Mandamin (2022) is titled Kîyânaw ocêpihk, meaning “we root” in Cree. This photobook brings together the words and photos of two generations of YIWU, in their own voices. This book chronicles YIWU gatherings in 2021 and 2022 through teachings, art, and what utopia could be.
putting the trail into action
adapting the promising practices to different contexts
You will likely need to adapt the Promising Practices to respond to your specific cultural contexts and communities. There is no “one-size fits all” approach to working with young people. It is not necessary to take up all the different practices presented here. We invite you to review each of the Promising Practices and work with the pieces that speak the most strongly to you and your community or context.
What
does youthled work look like in practice?
Youth-led work can take place to varying degrees, depending on the interests, availability, and capacity of young people. Youth might choose the topics they want to address, and an adult facilitator might then design activities around that topic. Or youth might plan and facilitate workshops themselves, from A to Z. Youth might not be available or interested in leading all the time. Implementing youth-led work will look different in each community/context, so you can expect the approaches that work for your context will look a little different from the approaches in other communities/contexts.
Roles can adults play as allies in youth-led work? What
“I feel like… sometimes the youth saw [us, the adults involved] as their bosses. But we were like, ‘No, you are our bosses. We’re doing this for you, and we are doing whatever you want us to do.’”
Zachary
Mandamin
One of the important parts of supporting youth-led work is for adults to listen to young people and step aside to leave space for young people to lead. Adult allies need to be flexible and adaptable in their varying roles to supporting youth-led work. Adult allies can consider how they can use their different positions—as facilitators, as community leaders, as researchers—to support the visions and work of young people. Critically, adults provide logistical support for youth-led projects, communicating and negotiating project or group norms, expectations, and outputs and in amplifying youth voices (see Promising Practice 4).
Miniature paintings by members of YIWU (Treaty 6) as part of Networks4Change.
Working with girls and young women on issues related to SGBV
Issues related to SGBV are complex, personal, and deeply connected to power dynamics and intersecting gender inequalities. When working with young people on issues related to SGBV, it can often be helpful to start with groups of girls, young women, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth to build relationships and trust and to create spaces where youth can feel comfortable expressing themselves. Group work organized around gender identities is a helpful starting point, especially given the potential to raise and discuss difficult issues or topics and the possibilities that youth have experienced or witnessed SGBV in their lives and communities. If and when girls, young women, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth are ready, it might be appropriate to also involve boys and young men, in all their diversity, to join the work in different ways.
WhatAbout boys and young men?
While the Promising Practices in this guide emerged specifically from situated work with Indigenous girls, young women, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, the Promising Practices are also relevant for working with Indigenous boys and men to address social issues that matter to them. Specifically regarding SGBV and supporting Survivors with a trauma-informed approach, working with boys and young men is critically important and often missing from this work. When beginning with girls, young women, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, it is critical to follow the group’s lead and wishes. Youth groups may specifically call for more intentional engagement from cis-gendered boys and young men in their communities, either as regular participants in the work or as audiences for the work. However, youth groups may also prefer not to involve boys and young men at first, especially when building trust and relationships within the group to create spaces where young people feel comfortable talking about issues related to violence. It is important to recognize that work on SGBV with cis-gender boys and young men requires different approaches and strategies. This work often needs to take up critical questions about masculinities and create safe spaces for boys and young men to talk about their experiences and social expectations around gender and the performance of it.
Howcan we create safer spaces together?
Creating safe spaces is an important and complex process. In safer spaces, youth feel comfortable to show up as their authentic selves without fear of being made to feel unwelcome on account of their physical or mental abilities, sexual orientation, cultural identity, race/ ethnicity, gender expression, and identity. Safe spaces are critical to ensure participants feel comfortable developing their voices, expressing themselves, exploring their identity, building friendships, discussing sensitive or taboo topics, and learning from one another.
It can be tempting to assume that particular spaces are ‘safe’ yet it’s difficult to guarantee true safety for each person in that space because there are so many factors involved. Working towards safer spaces is an ongoing process that requires active intention and facilitation.
Talking about feeling safe and unsafe can be hepful in creating safer spaces together. This poster from a photovoice activity with GET Art explored safe and unsafe spaces in the community (Rankin Inlet, 2018).
Tips for working towards the creation of safer spaces5
“The crafts for sure, because I am more of a hands-on learner … when people are talking too long and trying to explain stuff, I tend to get distracted and want to do something else. But with this program I get to create my own work and express what I think is important at the same time. It’s meant so much and I feel like it has a meaning for the younger generation, and I know they will eventually express themselves through art too.”
Haily May Ussak GET ART, RANKIN INLET
Focus on, and with, commutnity.
Cultural sensitivity and appreciation.
Collaborate to define your space (and adjust as you go!).
Provide access to appropriate resources.
Be aware of the physical space and its accessibility.
Discuss, acknowledge, and respect boundaries.
Recognize and vocalise your positionality.
Practice informed and ongoing consent.
5 Adapted from: Creating safe spaces: Working with youth
Reflect, review, and refine.
about sustainability? What
Direct funding for youth groups is critical for the sustainability of Indigenous youth-led work
Sustainability has been highlighted as a key issue and ongoing challenge for work that supports Indigenous youth in addressing issues of SGBV. While sustainability will look different for each community, depending on their unique contexts and goals, the organizations and individuals supporting Indigenous youth-led work often struggle to keep these programs running and spaces open.
truth + reconciliation commission Call to Action #66
“We call upon the federal government to establish multi-year funding for communitybased youth organizations to deliver programs on reconciliation, and establish a national network to share information and best practices.”
In response to TRC Call to Action #66, networks of Indigenous youth activists highlight how Indigenous youth programming typically relies on volunteer labour or short-term funding or small grants, as opposed to being supported by long-term or core funding.6 This creates environments of instability and poses a significant challenge to sustaining Indigenous youthled work beyond the life of a project. Having sustainable programming creates spaces for youth to feel safe, engage meaningfully through art and activism in their communities, and form relationships with adults supporting this work. Several factors contribute to the sustainability of youth-led and community-specific work including financial support, youthinterest, and support for the adults involved.
For more on the role of adult allies in the sustainability of Indigenous youth-led work, see Promising Practice 4 on Amplifying Youth Voices and Promising Practice 6 on Partnerships and Networks.
6 See for example the Assembly of Seven Generations report, A labor of love: The unpaid and exploited labour of grassroots and community-based Indigenous youth groups, written by
Gabrielle Fayant, Carrington Christmas, Brittany Matthews, and Josh Lewis.
Guiding Principles for Diverse Networks supporting indigenous
youth-led change
The guiding principles underlying the Promising Practices emerged over many years of collaboration around youth-led work and the critical need shared values among diverse teams and networks of Indigenous and non-Indigenous supporters. These guiding principles reflect the international North-South learnings of the Networks4Change project, early consultations with Indigenous community leaders and academic supporters as part of the More Than Words project, and ongoing work and relationships with Indigenous youth, Elders, and advisors.
Guiding Principles
From the More than Words Project
Acknowledge the uniqueness of communities
Commit to youthled approaches
Conscious power sharing
Ground in local Indigenous perspectives
Ensure ongoing and informed consent
Strength-based and survivor-focused approaches
Build authentic and reciprocal relationships
Centre culture and ceremony
Value intergenerational relationships and knowledge
Principle 1 Acknowledge the UNiqueness of Communities
We acknowledge that each community, including those that may use the Trail in the future, have their own unique culture, characteristics, identity, ways of doing, and complex social fabrics and systems. What works in one community needs to be adapted to meet the uniqueness of the next.
Principle 2 Ground in Local Indigenous Perspectives
We ground our work in local Indigenous perspectives that value the unique perspectives, practices, traditions, cultures, and identities of different groups and locations. In valuing the diversity of Indigenous Peoples and communities, we challenge the idea of a single “Indigenous-centered perspective.”
Principle 3
Build authentic and reciprocal relationships
We strive to build respectful relationships of trust with young people, families, communities, researchers, scholars, staff, partner organizations, and our wider networks. This means committing space, time, and resources for relationships to develop in ways that genuinely support the cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental well-being of the people we are in relation with.
Principle 4 commit to youth-led approaches
We value youth-led approaches and processes that center youth voices and inspire action and positive changes at a community level and beyond. This means youth participants determine what topics they want to address and which activities they want to engage in, so that youth-led work responds directly to the needs, interests, and concerns of young people themselves.
Principle 5
Ensure ongoing and informed consent
We commit to seeking ongoing and informed consent to build trust and develop strong community relationships. Consent means ensuring that youth and their communities understand the projects (are informed) and that consent is ongoing throughout the evolution of the projects (not just at the beginning). Informed consent means considering the languages spoken by the youth and their guardians and avoiding the use of academic jargon as much as possible.
Principle 6
Center Culture and Ceremony
We root our practices in culture and ceremony as foundational to countering historic attempts to disconnect Indigenous Peoples from their cultures and to ensuring that the work is culturally relevant and safe. Centering culture and ceremony includes making medicines available, making time for smudging, prayer, being on the land, connecting with Elders and knowledge keepers, and storytelling. It is important that youth are able to engage with culture and ceremony in the ways that feel the best to them.
Principle 7
Conscious Power Sharing
We encourage collaborative ways of working and relating with the intention of shifting towards conscious power-sharing among community organizations, leadership, institutions, and young people. This decolonial approach to power-sharing needs to be dynamic and change in response to the needs of those involved, including through the distribution of power with young people.
Principle 8 strength-based and survivorfocused approaches
We strive to work with consent-based, anti-oppressive, intergenerational, and trauma-informed approaches that recognize the impacts of colonial histories of violence in ways that do not further marginalize or pathologize these experiences. Survivor-focused approaches draw on existing strengths in the community to support and work towards collective healing.
Principle 9 value intergenerational relationships and knowledge
We value building trusting intergenerational relationships between youth and adults, where young people are at the center of research and community interventions as knowledge producers and where intergenerational teams value youth leadership and adult allies. This means acknowledging that youth-led work can take many forms and that adult allies are ready and willing to support youth in many different capacities.
Opening Circle and smudging with Elder Cecile Smith and YIWU, Treaty 6 (2020). Ceremony plays an important role in connecting Indigenous youth with culture.
ZACHARY
Do you feel like you have enough time and space for ceremony outside of YIWU?
I smudge at home with my sister and my family.
For me, I don’t smudge at school, I smudge at home though, like I’ll smudge with my family . . . When my Papa had a memorial, they asked like, ’cause Gabby was on her time, so they asked me to help with the sweetgrass and stuff. So that was pretty cool.
I don’t feel very connected to my culture at all, I feel like a white girl LOL. I’ve only been to a couple reserves on special occasions like funerals, family reunions, and occasionally powwows, but very little. The closest I’ve been to my culture is through smudging and dancing and I feel like in both, I have not been doing it for the sake of doing it, but doing it because I had to. When I was younger and just started dancing, I didn’t like it that much, it felt like a chore and now that I look back on it, I wish I never stopped because dancing is beautiful and it would have kept me in shape as well. [laughs] And the regret of not keeping up with my traditions is healed just a little when I go to Utopia and I’m grateful. Utopia helped me reconnect by doing all sorts of things like picking sage and now when I smudge, I see it as a way to heal instead of a burden.
50 Conversation about ceremony in youth group work between young women from YIWU and young Indigenous collaborator Zachary Mandamin. Excerpt from YIWU’s 2022 book Kîyânaw ocêpihk.
NICOLETTA
TARRA-LEIGH
MELODY
Promising practices
WhatAre ‘promising practices’?
Promising Practices are approaches, interventions, and ways of working that have been tried out through community or research projects and that have been seen to produce change. These Promising Practices focus on approaches that have been successful at engaging with Indigenous youth over the longer term, that have generated momentum in keeping youth involved in ways that support Indigenous experiences and identities, and that have made a difference in the lives and communities of the young people involved.
Each Promising Practice is quite different. They vary in complexity, timeframe, and the people involved. Some can be more short-term and punctual, and put into action, for example, through an afternoon workshop. Other Promising Practices, like mentoring, work well over the longer-term and built up over time. Each of the Promising Practices below work together and are complementary. Each practice supports the others. Yet, each practice can also be taken up on its own and adapted to your context or community.
Each Promising Practice presents an overview, some key features, ideas and tips for getting started or for sustaining the Promising Practice, and a spotlight featuring an example of the Promising Practice in action from the More Than Words project.
Promising Practice 1: Working with Youth Group Model
Promising Practice 2: Taking Action Together Through the Arts
Promising Practice 3: Fostering Mentorship, Auntyship, and Youth Leadership
Promising Practice 4: Amplifying Youth Voices
Promising Practice 5: Studying Change with Organic Evaluation and Creative Approaches
Promising Practice 6: Building and Sustaining Partnerships and Networks
Working with a Youth Group Model
Work with indigenous youth in groups? Why
Youth groups create spaces for young Indigenous people to come together in relationship with their peers to address topics that are important to them, and to engage in activism around social justice issues. Indigenous youth-led work is the strongest when it connects youth with each other. Working with young people in groups—Youth-2-Youth connections rather than 1-on-1 or in pairs—helps to center youth voices in ways that can be culturally specific and safe, and in ways that can are place-specific and relevant to a particular community. Sometimes youth-led and sometimes facilitated or supported by adult allies, youth groups foster social connectedness and friendship. Opportunities for young people to socialize with their peers helps to create a sense of community and support by building new and broader social connections in their lives and communities, as well as with other youth groups engaging in social justice activism. Bringing young people together can be empowering and increase young people’s confidence to continue to want to be involved and eventually to take on mentorship and leadership roles with the group.
Bringing youth groups together in the More Than Words project provided important spaces for building Youth-2-Youth
connections. These
create
opportunities for cross-cultural learnings and
(Y2Y)
connections
special
peer mentorship between the youth groups. Photo: Girls and young women from GET Art (Rankin Inlet) visit YIWU in Treaty 6 and are welcomed by traditional dancers (2022).
collage-making workshop at
involved
Key Features of this promising practice
Youth-2-Youth (Y2Y) connections
Youth groups help to create connections between Indigenous youth within one community, as well as with youth groups in other communities and in different parts of the world. When youth groups connect, young people learn how others are addressing social issues in their communities. These connections reassure Indigenous youth that they are not alone and create strong social networks that can contribute to increased motivation, confidence, and a greater sense of belonging. When youth from different nations and locations can travel to each other’s communities, gather, and hold space together, the learnings are rich and are taken back to their home communities.
A
York University
youth from YIWU (Treaty 6) and Break the Silence (Eskasoni) (2023).
Mentoring
Youth groups can support different types of mentoring relationships. For example, group mentoring can happen when there are more youth mentees and a smaller number of facilitator mentors. Peer mentoring is when youth mentor each other. Indigenous Aunties and matriarchs very often support the creation of safer spaces for youth. Through these different types of mentoring relationships, the youth group model provides greater opportunities for the youth to develop social relationships and take on leadership roles in the group (see also Promising Practice 3 on different mentoring relationships).
Adult Involvement
Adults are often involved in youth groups as facilitators and mentors. The youth group model can connect youth with leaders in their communities including Elders, community scholars, Aunties, and different role models. Adult supporters will intentionally create opportunities for Indigenous youth to connect with youth from other communities or organizations. Adult supporters and youth are continuously power sharing and communicating about dynamics to achieve a balanced collaboration and maintain the integrity of the youth-led nature of the work. Adults prioritize amplifying youth voices instead of centering their own.
Guided by Activism and Social Change
Youth groups can strive to mobilize knowledge, build solidarity, and work with youth to create positive change in their communities. These groups can be part of larger, sometimes global, movements that address social injustices and strive to positively shape the lives of young people.
“When I grow up, I want to be an activist for women’s rights and Indigenous rights. I joined YIWU because I always saw my sister and cousin going to it and I always wanted to join [...] I love it because I am accepted for who I am, and feel welcomed there, and loved.”
nicoletta daniels
YIWU, TREATY 6 7
7 From YIWU’s 2022 self-published book KÎYÂNAW ocêpihk produced by Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia 2.0 and Zachary Mandamin, edited by Dr. Belinda Daniels.
Recognize the importance of gender dynamics
Many youth groups are organized around gender identities, such as for girls, young women, and 2SLGBTQIA+ youth. Spaces without cis-boys or men can reduce the power imbalances, which often silence others in mixed gender spaces, allowing the participants of youth groups to find their voices and express themselves. As participants express the desire to work with boys and men, groups create shared agreements that define roles, expectations, and values to foster positive relationships for all group members. These groups can take several different forms, including separate boys’ groups which work in synch with girls’ groups, and collaborate occasionally or more regularly with mixed all-gender groups.
Group Evolution
Groups evolve over time. As youth learn and grow, the goals and focus areas for the youth group will also change. Participation from founding youth may wane and new youth may become more involved. Youth groups should be dynamic and there should be ways to track and respond to the changing needs and interests of the group. Leaving the space open for new participants, as well as returning participants who may have needed to take a break, is a great way to build a strong and supportive community.
Enabling access to support services
It might be unrealistic for youth groups to support all of young people’s diverse needs, in particular with regards to issues related to health and wellbeing. Through youth group spaces, youth and adult facilitators can play an important role in working to enable access to health and social services (regarding for example mental health, family crises, sexual assault, and addiction) by making information available about what local services, hotlines, or resources exist and how to access them.
“I enjoy being in a space with people that need it too. We all have our struggles, but coming together with YIWU doing art, playing games, working on schoolwork, and playing volleyball games are a way for me to get out of the house and have fun. Having a space like that to relax with people my age is amazing. It makes me feel less alone, and gives me a chance to make friends. Like me, a lot of these girls are shy and coming out of their shell, so having a space to open up confidently, is something I didn’t have when I wasn’t in YIWU.
When I was at the Round Dance, I may have been thousands of miles away from home, but I could feel the same energy that I do when I’m on Treaty 6.”
Harmony mckay
YIWU, TREATY 6, REFLECTION AFTER ATTENDING A ROUND DANCE CEREMONY WITH OTHER INDIGENOUS YOUTH IN OTTAWA, 2024
Tips for using this promising practice
Instigating the group
Youth groups typically start with youth leaders or an adult identifying needs for youth-centred programming and spaces in their community. Youth instigators may need to identify trusted adults to support their initiative. Adult instigators may need to identify youth who might be interested in youth group work.
Setting goals, defining purpose, and building relationships within the group
It is helpful for the instigators of the group to define their vision, including the goals and values of the group, who the group is for, and how folks participate. What kind of space feels supportive for the work the group wants to create together? For example, when creating safer spaces to work on issues related to gender, it might be helpful to begin by working with youth that identify as the same gender, such as 2-spirit and non-binary folks coming together to explore their lived experience, youth that identify as girls and young women collaborating to explore SGBV, or boys and young men working together to unpack healthy approaches to masculinity. Nurturing relationships of trust within the group is important.
Members of the GET Art youth group making art together in Rankin Inlet (2024). In this group, youth mentors co-facilitate the workshops.
“When we have our sharing circles, we always introduce ourselves and share something about ourselves... I feel like that aspect, even though we kinda know each other, introducing ourselves each time, built their confidence in themselves to introduce themselves to other people or help them make friends. I’ve definitely seen that they have become lighter and more confident.”
Seeking Community Support
Bringing the idea of the youth group to the community can help garner support, knowledge sharing and resources like space, materials, medicines, and other supplies. Seeking support might mean approaching organizations such as community centers, cultural organizations, schools, or individuals such as youth workers, teachers, or community leaders.
Members of the Break the Silence: Be the Change youth group travel together from Eskasoni to Montreal to participate in a More Than Words event with other youth groups (2023).
Zachary Mandamin
Selecting accessible locations
Identify potential meeting or gathering locations for the youth group. Consider which places in the community are freely available, safe, and easy to access for youth, for example, at a local café or community center, at the school, or at a traditional gathering place. Consider things like the frequency of public transport and the physical accessibility of the space.
“Hey Jen! I’m thankful and very honoured to do this. Girls group is always a great time, we laugh, we cry, we share, and we create long lasting memories. Our recent girls group session was so beautiful, I wish it could be like that all the time. All of us and our lovely guests hanging out together and sharing our stories in a tipi on the land, smelling the fresh air and sage, and eating. It’s the best. Like, come on... nothing gets better than that.”
Ocean Sanderson
YIWU, TREATY 6 REFLECTIONS ON SUMMER GATHERING IN THE SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWSLETTER
Choosing when to meet
Consider what meeting schedule will work best for the youth group. Would weekly or biweekly meetings work? Will the group connect during weekdays or weekends? Will there be one-off workshops or short retreats? Determine whether youth feel comfortable to gather in the evening and if folks can travel home safely. Start scheduling activities and adapt from there!
In person or online?
In-person meetings in the community provide invaluable spaces for the members of youth groups to build connections and a sense of belonging. Inequalities in internet access also present significant barriers. In some cases, where feasible, online meetings may be helpful for connecting with folks outside the community such as other youth groups or universitybased researchers.
Choosing Topics
Initial group meetings can be used to identify topics youth would like to address. Does that group want to take up issues related to SGBV? Cultural practices? Youth activism and leadership? Environmental violence? All ideas count! Youth can brainstorm ideas through discussion, talking circles, and even in creative ways like mind mapping, collaging, and drawing. As themes develop, the group can consider whether the involvement of guest speakers and knowledge keepers might facilitate the exploration of these topics.
Planning Activities
Initial group meetings can also begin to identify the types of activities that will be engaging for everyone. Plan activities that youth would like to do together. For example, to explore different topics, youth might be interested in exploring arts-based practices like photography, murals, theater, poetry, making videos, or a combination of these. Arts-based activities can be combined with exploring cultural traditions and ceremony by engaging with local knowledge keepers and being outdoors, walking on the land.
Connecting youth with other youth (Youth-2-Youth)
There are also great benefits to connecting with other youth within the community and also youth groups and organisations outside of the community. Look out for opportunities for youth to connect, perhaps via youth councils, youth gatherings, Round dances, festivals, ceremony, marches, and community dialogues.
examples of youth-2-youth activities
Social media
Posting and also following other youth or youth groups on social media and staying up to date with what they are doing.
Conferences and events
Seeking out events or conferences youth could participate in.
LargE in-person gatherings
National gatherings with youth and their supporters flying in from all over the country.
Virtual gatherings
Virtual gatherings consisting of presentations and discussions or workshops with different youth in the community.
Youth organizations
Reaching out to different organizations about possible visit or setting up virtual connections.
Showcasing youth work
Showcasing the work other Indigenous youthled groups are doing.
Keeping track of the work
Documenting activities (making videos, taking photos, taking notes, collecting and/or archiving youth artwork, sending updates to partners or allies via email or social media) helps youth communicate to others about the types of work that has taken place. This ‘evidence’ is useful to recruit more youth members, and to advocate within the community and with supporters and funders. Being able to look back on all the activities the group has done and the things they have achieved together can be very empowering and motivating. Keeping track is also a key component of Organic Evaluation (see Promising Practice 5).
SUSTAINABILITY TIP
No single practice can ensure the longevity of a youth group. As new concerns and groups of young people emerge, there may be new issues and a shifting landscape in terms of what Indigenous young people want and need. It can be helpful to try different activities and ways of working together. Most importantly, listening to the youth in the group will help guide this process of figuring out what is needed to the group going.
Spotlight: STORIES BEHIND THE YOUTH GROUPS IN MORE THAN WORDS
There are three distinct youth groups involved in the work of More Than Words; Break the Silence: Be the Change (BTS), Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art), and Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU). Each group looks and operates very differently, responding to the unique contexts in which they emerged and the specific interests and needs of youth in their community, and the varying opportunities and challenges of the communities in which they are based. Each group is also supported by adult allies and older youth mentors in different ways.
Members of Break the Silence take part in a medicine walk in Kahnawà:ke, an Indigenous community in another province (2023). This experience helped the group to bond with each other and to learn about the traditions and practices of the Kahnien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) nation. From left to right: Alyssia Christmas, Jaylyn
BREAK THE SILENCE
Break the Silence was instigated by youth (18 to 25 years old) in Eskasoni First Nation out of a recognition that youth needed a space in community to call their own. Youth from the community often came together in weekend workshops and retreats with support and facilitation from adult ally Linda Liebenberg, a community-based research and evaluation specialist who is also an Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University. Through community partnerships, the group has been able to gather at the Eskasoni Mental Health building and make art/conduct research on gender-based violence and Survivor support within the community. Group members use peer and intergenerational mentorship and have close collaborations with local knowledge keepers.
“Before we didn’t have anything for the youth in our community, no youth building or anything like that, so, I wanted that for us, I wanted a youth space. There’s stuff that goes on there now, and that’s because we used our voices. That’s even giving me the chills right now, because we were heard and then it happened.”
8 From interview with Hannah Battiste at More Than Words event (McGill University, 2023): https://youtu.be/bBfLOCt9aWs?si=wuuup1_ uKsaktWUy
Morris, Edmund Morris, Hannah Battiste.
Hannah Battiste
“I want to do this, so the younger youth know that they do have a voice and they don’t have to stick with the set rules that have been there for years and years, change is necessary.”
Edmund Morris BREAK THE SILENCE 9
Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art)
Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art) emerged from community-based programming in Rankin Inlet in 2017; a 3-day music video camp aimed to provide a platform for local Inuit girls and women to create their own media representations. This camp was developed by Cassidy Glennie, a Master’s Student from Dalhousie University, with local support from Mary Fredlund from the Rankin Inlet Spousal Abuse Counseling Program and with outside support from Marnina Gonick, a professor from Mount Saint Vincent University. Through the camp’s activities, a ‘Girls Talk Back’ program took shape and became a regular occurrence in the community. Teenage cousins, Julia Ussak and Haily May Ussak became regular participants of the group and over time, took on more leadership in the coordination and facilitation of the art programs alongside adult ally Jennica Alhda Barcial. In 2018, they renamed the program Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art).
“I don’t think we have very many resources in Rankin. It can be a really big help for (youth), they don’t really have a safe space [...] It really means a lot to me. It’s helped me through a lot of things growing up. I’ve made some really good friends and had a lot of fun.”
Julia Ussak
and co-facilitating
GET Art takes a programmatic approach. Workshops often take place after school for up to one week at a time, with a focus on different themes like empowerment, Inuit identity, and Inuit artistic practice. The programs have been held in community spaces such as the Spousal Abuse Centre, or in conference rooms of local hotels. Youth as young as 5 and as old as 17 have taken part in programs over the past six years and there are currently three youth mentors who are consistently involved in the planning and facilitation of the programs. Elders and community members also support the workshops by leading sessions and sharing their knowledge and skills. Adult ally and researcher Marnina Gonick from Mount Saint Vincent University supports GET Art and their activities through training, funding, and administrative support as well as by amplifying GET Art’s work.
Youth mentors from GET Art play an important role in planning
art making activities with younger youth (2024). The Youth Group Model creates a structure and community where older youth may take on mentorship or leadership roles to support younger youth in the group. From left to right: Haily May Ussak, Julia Ussak, Jemma Ulurksit.
GET Art’s after-school programs often involve younger girls attending primary school. The mentorship relationships between older and younger girls creates invaluable bonds, and fun, for everyone! This artmaking workshop took place in 2021.
Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU)
Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia (YIWU) was first instigated by Aunties Kari-Dawn Wuttunee and Jennifer Altenberg in Treaty 6, Saskatoon, as they set out to bring together a group of Indigenous girls to respond to the violence they were experiencing in their community. Girls were invited to participate in three initial workshop sessions that took place on consecutive Saturdays in Spring 2017. 12 girls quickly signed up, all between 12 and 18 years old. These girls became the ‘First Generation’ of YIWU (Gen-1). Many of these Gen1 youth are still involved in the group today and mentor/aunty a new generation of group members (Gen-2 or YIWU 2.0). Over the years, YIWU has also been supported by academic accomplice, Sarah Flicker from York University.
Members of First Generation YIWU (2019). Many of these young women have been involved in YIWU for over 7 years, since they were between 11 and 13 years old, and now mentor Generation 2.0 of the group. Top (from left to right): Gabby
Daniels, Jessica McNab, Andie Daniels. Bottom (from left to right): Kalan Cree Kakum, Ocean Sanderson, Cindy Mocassin.
“In girls group, we have been talking and learning about self-love is our resistance to emotional and physical abuse! ... I keep coming back to girls group because I enjoy spending time with all the girls and learning new things. I’ve grown a lot because I am no longer scared to talk and express my feelings and ask for help. I just feel very comfortable around all the girls, it’s like they’re family. I like girls group because they make me feel like I belong... It’s an amazing group to be in.”
Kalan Kakum
YIWU GEN-1 10
“I joined YIWU because I wanted to learn about MMIWG2S and to follow the steps of my sister Kalan Kakum ‘cause seeing my sister travel the world was amazing, and also knowing we get to know more people and learn new things every time I go. The thing I love about YIWU is how we meet the girls and Jenn and when we make a circle to smudge and we can express how we feel that day or week. [...] I think it’s cool having Indigenous girl mentors...”
Kelly Kakum
YIWU GEN-2 11 10 From YIWU’s 2019 self-published book, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia 11 From YIWU’s 2022 self-published book KÎYÂNAW ocêpihk produced by Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia 2.0 and Zachary Mandamin, edited by Dr. Belinda Daniels.
Members of Second Generation YIWU (2022). This group photo was taken at the book launch of KÎYÂNAW ocêpihk at Oskayak High School.
Taking action together through the arts
Participatory Visual METHODS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Participatory visual methods (PVMs) use creative tools and processes to co-create knowledge with communities and catalyze grassroots social change. PVMs invite young people to make art as a way to explore and take action about issues that matter to them. Whether youth make artwork individually or in small groups, PVMs can create opportunities for power-sharing and creative freedom. Arts-based work provides an accessible space for Indigenous youth to engage with challenging topics like SGBV, which may directly impact them but that can be uncomfortable or difficult to find the words to discuss. PVMs can be adapted to meet the needs and interests of young Indigenous peoples as well as to local contexts and cultures. The artwork produced through PVMs can be shared with wider audiences such as community members and other stakeholders.
Making art as a way to talk about a particular topic. With arts-based methods, youth often make art in response to a ‘prompt’ (a short question that invites reflection about a particular topic or lived experience). Prompts can address particular topics in the community like SGBV or environmental issues. Prompts can also be designed as a way for young people to talk about the impact of their work together in youth groups, and the difference that this work is making in their lives (see Promising Practice 5 on Organic Evaluation). While each person or group might respond to the prompt in different ways, the resulting artwork can stimulate thought-provoking discussion.
Cellphilm (video + cellphone) workshop. Members of GET Art develop a cellphilm called MIQSUQ (sewing in Inuktitut). From the storyboard: “Sewing is more than sewing. It is a responsibility fallen onto young women. It is important to us because it provides for our family, keeps our language alive, supports hunting” (2023).
Example Prompts and Artwork
COLLAGE
Prompt: What does it mean to be an author or a storyteller?
Collage is a low-tech and accessible artsbased approach that involves cutting found images from magazines and gluing them together in new ways to say something new. This collage was made by Kalan-Cree from YIWU (York University, 2022).
“Art is the way I express when I cannot speak.” Kalan-cree YIWU GEN-1
Cellphilming
Prompt: Why are youth groups important spaces?
Cellphilming involves making short videos on mobile devices like phones or tablets. This cellphilm Tongue-tied was made by members of Break the Silence (McGill University, 2023).
Prompt: I feel brave when...
Photovoice invites participants to take photos and sometimes write captions about a topic. This process often prompts rich discussion amongst participants. This photo was taken by a member of GET Art (Rankin Inlet, 2024).
Photovoice
Key Features of this promising practice
Youth Creativity and Ownership
PVMs focus on youth voices and how youth represent issues that matter to them. When young people are creating art about their experiences or about important issues in their lives, they are producing or co-producing knowledge that is grounded in their lived experiences while asserting agency and control in their lives.
Role of facilitators
The adults facilitating the group or organizing the workshop are responsible for handling the logistics and ensuring the arts-based activity responds to the needs and interests of the youth participants. Adult facilitators should be thoughtful and intentional about ethical considerations, including consent.
Social Justice Dialogue: Speaking Back Through Art
Art and PVMs create opportunities for young people to engage with challenging topics or issues and for young people to speak back to those same topics. Where speaking up might be the process of raising awareness on an issue, speaking back recognizes the knowledge and insights of young people as central to disrupting and dismantling the structures and systems that might appear normative.
“Art allows us to express ourselves in creative and aesthetic ways... A lot of these arts-based forms are for youth to be able to interpret and analyse their own work.”
Angelina Weenie
Ethical considerations and consent
Working with PVMs involves several ethical considerations about ownership, confidentiality, and anonymity, especially when working with photographs and videos produced by young people and if the work will be shown at public events or distributed widely. This consideration is particularly critical when the work takes up sensitive or difficult topics such as SGBV. A key feature of PVMs is prioritizing conversations about ethical considerations such as sensitive topics and the potential for traumatization and re-traumatization, as well as questions about ownership of the artwork, anonymity, audiences, and consent to share work. Informed consent ensures participants are fully aware of what will happen in the project. On-going consent requires going back to the participants throughout the project and obtaining their consent at each step.
Creating wider conversations with different audiences
Youth-produced artwork can serve as a tool to bring community members, including families, adults, and changemakers, into the youth conversations as a way to begin mobilizing action and calling for change. The artwork created by youth can also be displayed in public forums or community events to start wider conversations and engage stakeholders.
Youth in Rankin Inlet reflect on posters showcasing the work they had done previously in their community. (2024)
“It feels good, because when the parents come at the end of the day to collect their child, their kid is showing their artwork, and who knows what goes on at home or how much attention that kid gets. So doing this program and showing their parents the artwork they did, just gives them another reason to give their kid more attention and be more proud of them and believe they have a successful future, whether it’s in art or not.
I hope the work motivates others to do their best in whatever they are invested in, whether it’s collage or art... Whatever they find interesting, I hope they don’t give up and believe they can make it.”
Haily May Ussak GET ART, RANKIN INLET
An approach to community-based research
PVMs are a type of community-based research methodology for better understanding a topic from the perspectives of young people. By making art and talking about the issues represented in the art, young people become co-researchers in identifying and documenting, topics or issues that matter to them. This co-creation of knowledge and seeing issues ‘through the eyes of young people’ changes what issues are raised in research and how these issues are represented, helping to shift the hierarchies of power in traditional adult-led research.
Mural titled Creator! Save the Matriarch developed by YIWU in downtown Saskatoon (Treaty 6). This mural takes up violence against women and girls. The words “No more stolen sisters” takes up MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls), speaking back to colonial and gender-based violence in Treaty 6.
Tips for using this promising practice
Choosing a Topic
Youth can determine what topics or issues they want to address through arts-based methods. Youth might decide this topic together or this might be a facilitated activity to brainstorm and then select or vote or decide on a topic.
Some Example Topics
Speaking back to a local or global issue
Celebrating and learning about culture or tradition
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV)
Mentorship and Leadership
Choosing a PVM
There are many different types of PVMs to choose from. Some PVMs like drawing and painting are more low-tech and accessible. Others like photovoice and cellphilming are more involved and require some access to equipment like mobile technologies (like mobile phones or tablets), computers, or photo printers.
This toolkit developed as part of the More Than Words project includes instructions and examples of many different PVMs.
Choosing or inviting a facilitator
Who might be the most appropriate facilitator(s) for the PVM activities? Is there already a trusted adult facilitator of the group who might be interested? PVMs are meant to be accessible, but facilitation can also be complex. Sometimes it can also be helpful to invite a facilitator who has facilitated PVMs or other arts-based methods, as the group is becoming more familiar with these approaches.
Starting conversations about ethical considerations and consent
Have conversations about ethics and consent from the start and make a plan together about how the project will approach ethical considerations related to the work.
example questions for discussing ethics and consent with youth groups
Do youth want to have their faces and voices in the art?
What art-making strategies can help to ensure different levels of anonymity?
Who will the art be shown too? Where will it be displayed? For how long?
Thinking about how to organize the artmaking process
PVMs typically involve a series of ‘steps’ that might include deciding on a prompt, brainstorming about the topic to generate ideas, making art, sharing the art with the group, writing about the art, and organizing exhibitions or publications to share the art with wider audiences. These steps may change or be conducted in a different order, depending on the context and purpose of the activity. Youth may decide to make art individually or in small groups.
Carrying out the activity
Depending on the community, experience of the facilitators, and method chosen, the PVM activities will look a little different. Some activities might take place in a single session whereas others might take place over a few sessions. For example, you could create cellphilms on one day and then screen and discuss the cellphilms on day two. Or you could make and discuss collages in a 2-hour workshop. Be flexible! Creating space for the participants to adapt the activity to their needs will result in a more meaningful experience for everyone.
Brainstorming in small groups helps to generate discussion and ideas around the prompt (from cellphilm workshop at McGill University, 2023).
Storyboarding is a step in the cellphilm process where groups drawing out their ideas for their cellphilm, scene by scene (from cellphilm workshop at McGill University, 2023).
An exhibition showcasing arts-based work produced by the More Than Words youth groups to audiences outside their community (McGill University, 2023).
Showcasing the art
Depending on the interests of the youth group it might be appropriate to host an event so community members can see the art produced by the group. Consider creating an exhibition of the artwork, even if only for the youth group members. It can be very powerful for youth to seeing their artwork displayed alongside the work of their peers and inspire new ideas and rich discussion (see also Promising Practice 4 on Amplifying Youth Voices).
The annual McGill International Cellphilm Festival provides an international platform for youth groups to showcase their cellphilms. In 2019, the festival theme was “Picturing change.” Members of YIWU won an award for their cellphilm addressing GBV.
ZINES
Zines are a form of “counter-culture” media. They are created by and for groups of people whose voices are typically not heard by or represented in mainstream media. Zines have and continue to do a lot for underrepresented populations as a form of expression, and community building and preservation.
Many of the More Than Words groups have made “zines” to showcase their artwork. This description of Zines is from the IMPRESS 2023 Collage Zine by Indigenous interns at McGill University.
SUSTAINABILITY TIP: Creating an archive
Finding ways to document and preserve the artwork produced by young people is critical for both sustaining and amplifying the work. From scanning drawings or collages and taking photos of three-dimensional artwork (like sculptures and sewing) to creating a YouTube channel of youth’s cellphilms, this is best done during the art-making activities or right away after to make sure that the work is well-preserved. Documenting the process is also helpful (e.g. photos of how the workshop space is set up or photos of youth making art in action). Creating books or zines is another way to create an archive of youth artwork. Regardless of the archive format, it is critical that young people can go back to revisit their work as a collection. This archive can then also contribute to studying change (see Promising Practice 5 on Organic Evaluation).
Spotlight: INUIT CULTURAL REVITALISATION WITH GET ART, RANKIN INLET
Programmatic Approach
An Arts-based After-School Program
Girls Expressing Themselves Through Art (GET Art) organizes clusters of after-school workshops, each focusing on a different theme and arts-based method. Each iteration of the program involves approximately 8-12 girls and young women between the ages of 5 and 18 years old. In March 2024, GET Art hosted a 5-day after-school program which gave youth participants the opportunity to use a range of PVMs such as collage, zine-making, sewing, photovoice, and cellphilming to explore Inuit culture and tradition through different themes, and in relationship with different Elders. The group wanted to explore different PVMs and to be able to take their artwork home, to share with their families and keep as reminders of the themes, discussions, and time spent working together.
Marks of belonging + safety Photovoice Delphine Shouldice
Inuit storytelling + youth authorship
Cellphilming Levinia Brown
Friday
Sharing our voices Wrap-up + reflections Helen Iguptak
Involvement of youth mentors
Three youth mentors Haily May Ussak, Julia Ussak, and Jemma Ulurksit facilitated the sessions alongside adult ally Jennica Alhda Barcial and visiting facilitator, Emily Booker, a student researcher from McGill University. The mentors introduced the theme to the group, helped youth participants develop their ideas, and supported the hands-on elements of artmaking. Youth mentors also helped collect consent forms from parents/guardians of the younger participants and planned and obtained materials and refreshments for the program. Youth mentors and adults worked together to ensure participating guest speakers and Elders had appropriate transport and compensation for their contribution.
Making a Zine Collage
After collaging on Day 1, Emily helped the group put together a zine of their collages. A zine (borrowed from the word magazine) is a low-tech and low-fi publication that is typically self-published and inexpensive to reproduce via photocopying for smallscale distribution. GET Art’s zine is entitled ᐊᑭᐊᒃ (Akiak), an Inuktitut word for Brave. Producing a collaborative production was very meaningful for the group and a great way to share their work with folks outside of the program.
This collage, The North, by Teryn has the following caption: “Being in the North makes me feel confident. Being able to spend time outside makes me feel confident. I chose these pictures because they make me feel happy and special <3 Because not many people get to go hunting with their dad or go ice fishing.”
Members of GET Art cut images from magazines about what it means to feel brave and organized them onto paper. Some collages have words and images, other collages have just images.
Community Elder Levinia Brown shared felt wall hangings that she made. Girls then explored this practice and made felt wall hangings to take home. The girls explored a variety of symbols such as igloo (traditional snow shelters, symbolic of home), inuksuk (stone landmarks, symbolic of humans), and the ulu, a traditional women’s knife.
Inviting Elders and artists as guest speakers
The girls moved through the week of activities and were visited by guest speakers from the community who were able to see their work and share learning from their own work and lived experience. Rosie Ussak talked to the group about the history of felt wall hangings and facilitated as the group worked on their own handsewn felt productions. Delphine Shouldice talked to the girls about the significance of kakiniit (traditional tattoos) in Inuit culture and the process of reclaiming these traditions. Elder Levinia Nuqaalaq Brown, former MLA and Deputy Premier of Nunavut shared her own wall hangings and some of her lived experience growing up in the region. On the last day of the program, renowned textile artist and Elder, Helen Iguptak, showed the group some of her handmade dolls and spoke of her time in residential school.
Making Felt Wall Hangings
Felt wall hanging are a traditional Inuit practice, often associated with women’s economic empowerment, where shapes and patterns of different colors are cut out of felt and stitched together by hand to tell a story. Traditional wall hangings are considered an important archive of Inuit culture and history, often featuring scenes of hunting and fishing and displayed in homes or gifted to visitors.
Cellphilming
Towards the end of the week, the girls worked with tablets to make cellphilms (1- 2 minutes) about the significance of the GET Art group in their lives. The group used a ‘no editing required’ approach to cellphilming, which means the groups could plan, shoot, and screen their cellphilms in one day, either making a ‘one shot video’ or by pausing the recording to create scenes. Reflecting on the prompt, ‘Why are girl spaces important,’ the girls talked about their involvement in GET Art and why this group is important to them.
Cultural revitalization through the arts
Combining art-based activities around specific themes and storytelling from the community created vibrant conversation within the group about cultural traditions and revitalization. The group produced artworks that carry those conversations on, with the families of the youth who participated and more broadly with those in the community that encounter their zine, cellphilms, and other creations.
Screenshot from the cellphilm Girls spaces are important (2024). In this cellphilm, Viola, Whisper, Naomi, and Jeralyn chime, “At GET Art we get to make new friends and work together.”
Screenshot from the cellphilm Teamwork makes the dream work (2024). In this cellphilm, Katie shares “We like GET Art because it is a brave place.”
Fostering Mentorship, auntyship, and youth leadership
Mentoring relationships are central to work that supports Indigenous youth to make positive changes in their communities. Mentoring relationships can foster teaching and guidance for youth to explore their passions and get involved in issues that matter to them. Indigenous mentoring includes a strong cultural component and connection to community. Young people who have been mentored often go on to become mentors themselves.
Mentoring can benefit the mentees as well as the mentors, including increasing feelings of empowerment and building young people’s confidence and leadership skills. Mentoring connects youth with role models which creates culturally relevant learning opportunities and strengthens social networks and community connections. Through these relationships, youth are supported to engage in activism and get involved to make change in the community. Mentorship builds social connectedness for both mentors and mentees and can act as a protective factor by increasing intergenerational bonds and connections to culture.
responsible for running group registration and facilitating activities.
Left Photo: In Treaty 6, YIWU held a group meeting at the family tipi of Auntie Helen Semaganis-Worme in July 2020. Auntyship mentoring supports the girls and young from YIWU to spent time bonding with each other and with their community Elders by learning about traditional Cree teachings.
Right Photos: “Marks of Belonging: Mentorship Workshop” Rankin Inlet (2020). In GET Art, two founding members who were participants in the first iterations of the group have transitioned into the role of peer mentors and are now
Mentoring Different types of
Mentoring can take place through different types of relationships that include one-on-one relationships and in group settings (where several mentees might connect with one mentor):
PEER MENTORING
Peer mentoring creates and builds on peer relationships between youth. With this type of mentoring, the relationship between the mentor and the mentee might be more egalitarian with a smaller age gap. Peer mentoring allows youth mentors to take on leadership roles and form connections with younger youth. Peer mentoring creates strong social bonds and a sense of community and belonging between young people.
In GET Art programs in Rankin Inlet, such as this collage workshop, older girls mentor younger girls (2024). In this small community, these mentorship relationships are important for creating a sense of belonging and lasting bonds.
COMMUNITY AND CULTURAL MENTORING
Community and cultural mentoring take place in the community and empowers the mentees to become active members of their communities. Cultural mentoring considers what forms of mentoring are culturally appropriate and relevant and strives to connect the mentees to their cultures to foster positive cultural identities, helping to create a sense of belonging and agency.
RETREAT AND WORKSHOP STYLE OF MENTORING
Retreat and workshop style of mentoring brings mentors and mentees together to share skills, knowledge, and build relationships in a short time frame. This style of mentoring requires less of a time commitment and acknowledges that youth are busy and living lives with different priorities from researchers or community organizers. Retreat mentoring can be helpful for establishing new youth peer-to-peer or adult-youth mentorship relationships.
AUNTYSHIP OR AUNTY MENTORS
Auntyship or Aunty mentors is a uniquely Indigenous mentoring relationship. Auntyship and Aunty mentoring renews intergenerational bonds between Indigenous women and girls by connecting youth with role models, Elders, and Aunties in their communities. Similar to cultural mentoring, Aunty mentoring can help connect Indigenous youth to their cultures while fostering a sense of cultural identity and pride. Auntyship mentoring with Indigenous girls and women can be restorative and healing for both the mentees and the mentors.
In Eskasoni, researcher Linda Liebenberg (left) has played an important Aunty role in supporting members of the Be the Change group, including one the groups founders, Hannah Battiste (right).
Key Features of this promising practice13
Indigenous Mentoring
Indigenous mentoring emphasizes culture, tradition, and social and environmental factors. Building cultural connections through mentorship helps to strengthen identity and cultural pride. Indigenous mentoring differs from typical Eurocentric models of mentorship in that it recognizes that all people can be teachers and learners. Indigenous mentorship tends to be activity-based and value different ways of being and knowing.
Who can be or become a mentor?
Mentoring often involves identifying mentors who are a ‘good fit’ for the mentorship. What makes an ideal mentor can vary a lot depending on the situation and context. In the context of larger projects, mentors may already be involved in the project, or it might be appropriate to seek out additional members of the community. Regardless, some form of training can support mentors to become the type of mentors that they want to be.
13 Based on Mentoring Literature Review with a Focus on Indigenous Girls and Young Women, by Emily Booker from the Participatory Cultures Lab (McGill University, 2020).
Member of YIWU developed a presentation on “Little Mom Methodologies”about the importance of Auntyship and Aunty teachings for their group and in their community.
A strength-based approach to mentoring youth
A strength-based approach to mentoring youth works within a social justice framework that starts by identifying and building on the strengths of young people. This counters a deficit approach to mentoring, which can be harmful for youth because they focus on what are deemed to be flaws or failures of young people. Strength-based mentoring recognizes the importance of contextualizing social issues and structural factors at play in youth’s lives, and values youth agency and existing social support networks.
“Being an Aunty means to influence our younger generation to be good people, to support them and inspire them to be their very best. It means to be a positive role model and allowing others to have a safe space. Knowing there’s someone looking up to me keeps me on track and makes me want to become better and better with time.”
Cindy Moccasin YIWU, TREATY 6 FROM A
PRESENTATION ON AUNTY TEACHINGS
Formal and informal mentoring relationships
Formal mentorship relationships involve more structure, where mentoring might be part of a program organized by a third party such as in school settings. Formal mentorship might be more goal oriented and occur within a particular timeframe. Informal (or natural) mentoring relationships might emerge more organically as mentors and mentees develop a relationship on their own.
“It’s kind of scary, because you are kind of shifting their minds to think about new things and teaching them new things and I hope those things lead them to a good place.”
Julia ussak GET ART, RANKIN INLET
In Eskasoni, youth in their 20s collaborate on mixed-gender group mentoring and share knowledge through the publication of books, creation of support materials, and their participation in youth conferences. In this photo, group members Edmund Morris (left) and Jaylyn Morris (right) share their work on a new book A Mi’kmaw Affirmation Book to support youth mental health and wellbeing (mentored by original group member Hannah) with a team of researchers in Montreal (McGill University, 2024).
Mentoring can take place in different settings
School-based mentoring might work within school structures and programming to support youth engagement and connection in the school community. University-based mentorship recognizes the importance of Indigenous peer relationships, especially when Indigenous students might be far from their community and feeling isolated from their culture. Landbased mentorship support mentors and mentees to connect with the land and cultural identity.
Mentorship supports Indigenous youth leadership
Mentorship supports Indigenous youth leadership, which may be more relational and value trustworthiness, humility, and health14. At the same time, young people across various cultural contexts benefit from having role models in their lives, or individuals they can look to for guidance as they navigate adolescence and early adulthood. Mentoring relationships create models and frameworks for youth to step into leader or peer-mentor roles, if and when they are ready.
14 Monchalin, R., Flicker, S., Wilson, C., Prentice, T., Oliver, V., Jackson, R., ... Native Youth Sexual Health Network. (2016). ‘When you follow your heart, you provide that path for others’: Indigenous models of youth leadership in HIV prevention. International Journal of Indigenous Health, 11(1), 135-158.
Reflecting on Mentorship
Indigenous mentorship, Auntyship and youth leadership can also be topics that youth groups can explore and work on through arts-based methods, as a way to document, celebrate, and amplify the impacts of these important relationships.
Prompt: What does Indigenous Mentorship mean to you?
This collage, published in the IMPRESS 2023 Collage Zine, was made by Indigenous mentor Emilee Bews, who supported Indigenous student summer internships with the Participatory Cultures Lab, McGill University (2023).
“Programs like IMPRESS are so important for Indigenous students to co-create community. As a mentor, I strive to provide support I wish I had at the beginning of my academic and professional journey to my mentee(s). Mentorship, especially for Indigenous students, is important for navigating academic spaces alongside others who want to see your success.”
Emilee Bews
MENTOR, IMPRESS PROGRAM FOR INDIGENOUS STUDENTS MCGILL UNIVERSITY, 2023
Tips for using this promising practice
“I’m an Auntie and I love my nieces and I love my little sisters. I love my siblings and I want them to grow up and feel important. I want them to be able to feel that they have a voice and that they can be heard, and they have a great future ahead of them. I want our generation to have that too.”
Battiste BREAK THE SILENCE, ESKASONI 15
What type of mentoring?
When deciding what style of mentoring to use, consider the following. Keep in mind, mentoring styles can be combined and adapted to best meet the needs and interests of the participants and communities.
Is mentorship already happening organically in the community?
Are there natural mentors in the community?
What mentoring style is most culturally relevant?
What is the availability of adult role models in the community?
What is the availability of youth mentees?
Are older youth interested in being peer mentors?
Are there any mentoring gaps? Who is not represented/present as a mentor?
15 From interview with Hannah Battiste at More Than Words event (McGill University, 2023): https://youtu.be/ bBfLOCt9aWs?si=wuuup1_uKsaktWUy
Hannah
Recruiting mentors
Identify potential mentors (adults or older youth) in the community who could become mentors or Aunties. Look for natural mentors or role models in the community. Look for instances of organic mentorship within the youth group or community. Invite potential mentors to learn about the youth programming and the roles of mentors.
supporting mentors
It might be helpful to offer support for mentors, through for example providing training, activity plans, or logistical support. Formal mentoring programs typically provide mentor training that might include the roles and responsibilities of mentors, how to form strong bonds and mentoring relationships, and the boundaries for mentor and mentee relationships. Mentors dedicate important time and energy to mentorship relationships. Support mentors through recognition and reciprocity. Take care of the Aunties!
Planning Mentorship Activities
Consider what activities the youth want to participate in with their mentors and how activities can be used to address their chosen topics or issues:
What will be the role of the mentors?
What will be the role of the mentee?
What are the goals for the activity and the mentors and mentees?
Adult facilitators may take on the responsibility of organizing logistics such as scheduling activities around everyone’s availability, gathering necessary supplies, and ensuring there is access to a safe space.
Checking-in: Evaluating and adapting mentorship relationships
relationships. Check-in with the mentors and mentees periodically to assess if the mentoring relationships are going OK and if the mentorship needs of the mentors and mentees are being met. As these needs change, the type of mentoring that is most appropriate may also change. If new needs appear, consider adapting the mentoring style in use. As youth mentees get older, new peer-mentoring relationships may be established.
SUSTAINABILITY TIP: Growing and Changing Roles
As youth groups continue their work, youth grow with the groups and their roles evolve. Youth who participate in early iterations of the groups as participants may become peer mentors and Aunties to newer generations of participants. Taking on these new roles allows youth to continue contributing to the group as they age and creates opportunities to build leadership skills.
Being flexible with roles and responsibilities can also create space for parents and guardians of youth to become more actively involved. Parents and guardians, especially those in mothering roles, have been inspired by the work of youth and have also become active Aunties within the groups, supporting activity development, helping group leaders with facilitation, and travelling with the youth to events outside the community. Creating intentional space for participants and their families’ roles and responsibilities to change over time can positively contribute to the sustainability of youth groups.
Spotlight: AUNTYSHIP IN YOUNG INDIGENOUS WOMEN’S UTOPIA, TREATY 6
Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia’s (YIWU) distinct approach to Auntyship and youth mentorship can be explored through their intergenerational approach to publications.
Generation 1
In 2017, YIWU initially began as a research group as part of the Networks4Change project. The original 12 group members, all between 11 and 13 years old, were supported by Aunties Jennifer Altenberg, Kari Dawn Wuttunee, and academic accomplice, Sarah Flicker from York University. YIWU made art together and learned about nêhiyaw (Cree) and Michif ways, and used sâkihisowin (self-love) as the first form of resistance to the violence they faced in their lives. The founding youth identified themselves as “Generation 1” of YIWU and recognised the importance of being role models for their community.
Together, Generation 1 worked together to produce their self-published book “Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia” in 2019, which shares Survivor stories and teachings to inspire and empower young readers. The mentorship of women in the community is integral to YIWU’s approach. YIWU Generation 1 were eager to embody this teaching further within the group.
“One of the teachings that we carry as Indigenous women is that mentorship is essential to the success of girls and women.”
“We knew that inviting women from our community to share their stories and Survivor stories would empower the girls and build relationships that would carry forward into their futures.”
From Love Letters by sohki Iskwew16
Generation 2
Following their book publication, YIWU intentionally recruited their younger sisters and cousins to join the group and take part in activities. These new recruits became “Generation 2” and the older girls of Generation 1 took on the role of Aunties or nikâwîsak in Cree (“my little mothers” in English). Becoming Aunties had a big impact on the girls and how they saw themselves and their roles in the communities.
16 From YIWU’s 2019 self-published book, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia
17 From YIWU’s 2022 self-published book KÎYÂNAW ocêpihk Women’s Utopia 2.0 and Zachary Mandamin, edited by Dr. Belinda Daniels.
“Being a part of Generation 1 and taking on the role of being a mentor is a great experience. It also makes me realize how far I’ve come. From being this little shy twelve-year-old that was too shy to ask for help to becoming a mentor to the Indigenous youth and being able to speak in front of a university class full of students.”
Kalan Kakum17
Over the next years, Generation 1 and 2 collaborated closely on arts-based activities, community initiatives, exhibitions, and presenting their work at events and conferences. Inspired by the mentorship of their Aunties, Generation 2 youth chronicled their work, experiences, and learnings through YIWU’s second publication Kîyânaw Ocêpihk meaning “we root” in Cree (with young Indigenous researcher Zachary Mandamin). This photobook makes space for YIWU to share their stories and experience as Gen-2 mentees and Gen-1 mentors. Planning activities for the book gave opportunities for youth to come together and thoughtfully consider their relationships and alignment with Cree and Michif worldviews and kinship teachings.
“I think it’s cool to have Indigenous girl mentors, we have them to guide us.”
Kelly Kakum18
“What I find cool about the older generation mentoring us is the experience & knowledge they hold. I also envy their leadership skills which I hope to gain one day.”
Melody McKay18
Amplifying Youth Voices
Amplifying Indigenous youth voices means bringing the work that has been produced or that is happening in the youth group to new audiences and spaces, where young Indigenous people can share their messages, artwork, and calls for change and where there is the potential for greater impact. Respecting the ongoing and informed consent of young people to amplify their work, this practice follows the principles of “nothing about us, without us,” as it seeks to ensure young people are having their voices heard by people that they might not typically have access to, such as people who have the power and ability to make decisions impacting them directly. Amplifying youth voices means finding appropriate avenues, resources, and support for seeking greater reach and impact of the work that youth are doing in their communities.
Extending the reach of Indigenous youth-led work can help to build confidence and foster leadership skills among young people and build relationships between adults and youth within and outside of the community. Youth groups often herald as pivotal experiences, the publications, events, and advocacy activities where they have collaborated with adults to explore different mediums, methods, and networks within which to amplify their voices and make change. This Promising Practice is particularly important in relation to arts-based productions.
With the consent of the girls and young women in YIWU, adult alley Jenn Altenberg worked to amplify YIWU’s work through a news article published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2019). This is one example of how adult allies can use their networks to widen the reach of Indigenous youth-led work.
Key Features of this promising practice
Leveraging the role of adults
The adults who are supporting Indigenous youth-led work can leverage their positions and connections within and beyond the community to further the work of young Indigenous people. Adults often have access to technical expertise, resources, and networks that can help to amplify youth voices by, for example, finding avenues or spaces to exhibit youth artwork or securing funding to continue the work.
“I was never heard when I was younger so it felt good to be part of this... I kind of saw it as my privilege to ... provide them with that space to speak back to issues that they care about, because I was never provided that. So it felt really special to be helping them, amplifying their voices.”
Zachary Mandamin
Amplifying the work of GET Art with parents and community members at a GET Art event in the school gym, Rankin Inlet (2020).
“As I scuttle around in my office trying to support Jenn and Kari – so that they can support you – I always do so with a full heart. I am so proud of your accomplishments and delight in your success. I am honoured to be affiliated with such a fabulous group of young women. I cherish my ribbon skirt and all your many teachings. I love the time that we do get to spend together and I look forward to watching you shine at your book launch this spring.
Thank you for allowing me to join your journey – and especially for leading the way.
Warmly, Sarah Flicker (aka The York University professor who cheers you on from the sidelines).
PS Please come visit me in Toronto anytime! We would love to welcome you to York.”
SARAH FLICKER
Ongoing and informed consent to recognize youth knowledge, voice, and agency
Amplifying youth voices recognizes young people as the experts of their own lives and experiences and challenges age-based hierarchies. Therefore, asking young people what they think about how to amplify their voices, and with whom, and involving young people directly in this work wherever possible is critical.
Communicates the work that youth are doing across communities
Communication approaches like newsletters and blogs can play a significant role for keeping in touch and knowledge sharing across youth groups or community sites, so everyone can stay connected and know what is happening in different communities. Additionally, social media accounts can amplify youth voices to share updates from each site and connect across sites.
Identifying opportunities for young people’s work to reach new audiences
Amplifying youth voices may take many different forms that could include securing time for youth to present their work at community events or with wider audiences (such as at conferences, or at meetings with particular groups of stakeholders), finding places in the community or beyond to display youth artwork, finding opportunities for young people to write and publish their artwork and ideas, or finding opportunities for young people to travel.
Supporting different types of youth-led productions and publications
Youth might work individually or in groups to create different types of productions and publications, that could include any range of formal and informal print or digital publications including newsletters, books, zines, cellphilms, artwork, as well as online fora such as websites and social media posts.
Hannah Battiste from Break the Silence in Eskasoni published a book of her poetry Out of Darkness: A Poetic Journey through Trauma. More Than Words has helped to amplify this book by sharing the book through book launch and project newsletters, inviting Hannah to do poetry readings, and displaying copies of the book at other youth and arts-related events.
Documenting the stories and histories of
youth-led work
Youth’s artwork and publications often tell youth’s stories or perspectives in relation to issues in their communities, or in relation to their involvement in this work. These productions might also chronicle the shared history of the group and provide common reference points or memories for how the work has been sustained over time, highlighting what has been impactful and how this work has been meaningful to young people over time.
After the launch of YIWU’s first book, YIWU member Gabby Daniels posted on social media to thank the community of support around YIWU supporting and amplifying their voices. She wrote:
“Well, I’m a published author. Tonight we had the launch of our first book as the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia. I’m so proud of how far we’ve come as a group, and as best friends. For the past 3 years i have gotten so close with the girls and now consider them my sisters - thank you Kari and Jen for everything you have done for us - also thank you to all of my facebook fam for always liking my posts and supporting me unconditionally. ALSO thank you to my Daniels/ Miller fam, I love you guys with all my heart. This night was filled with laughter, crying, and happiness. Can’t wait to see where the future takes us. Love you guys - hiy hiy.”
Amplifying youth advocacy work
Youth groups may want to advance advocacy goals for change in their communities or in how youth groups are supported. Adults can play roles amplifying this advocacy work by supporting youth publications and events.
The More Than Words Youthfesto sees young people as the key to changing the world. It acknowledges the partnerships needed between adults and youth to create the future everyone wants. It demands that youth not only be involved but be centered in the work that needs to be done to make communities spaces where youth can not only survive, but thrive!
From the more than words youthfesto
We urge stakeholders to:
Trust and invest in youth!
Inspire.The.Youth.
Recognize Indigenous rights to self-determination
Center marginalized youth voices in policy and practice decisions
Make the changes needed in our communities like local hamlet support or support from grocery stores
Give us more funding with fewer strings
Break down barriers and be unconventional
Reach out to the community: Allow us to have a voice!
Educate themselves on Indigenous issues, cultures, and languages
Fund programs and pay people doing the hard work
Think more about mental health
Accept non-traditional measurements of success/progress
Invest in youth-led programs and spaces
Be less ignorant, times have changed: Listen and take action
Tips for using this promising practice
What do youth want to amplify?
Consider what topics the youth have been addressing in their work and ask the group what issues they would like to be discussing with others. Keep in mind that youth might want to amplify their work on some topics outside the group, but not their work on others. Listening is key.
The Remai Modern Museum in Saskatoon (Treaty 6) promoted YIWU’s first book and made it available in the museum bookstore, and also provided space for the group to meet.
Where can youth voices be amplified?
Depending on what topics the youth want to share, consider which individuals, groups, or networks within the community or beyond that might be interested or receptive to engaging with this work. For example, if the group has been working on climate change, consider if you know anyone working or teaching in the environmental field or in environmental studies. Would there be an opportunity for interested youth to speak in their class or display their art in a relevant public space (such as in an office lobby or common area)? Consider what connections can be made to open more doors or access new and other ways to amplify youth voices.
Discussing with youth the benefits and risks of sharing their work
Ask the youth group how they would feel about sharing their work in those spaces. Discuss the benefits and risks of sharing their experiences and perspectives with adults, peers, the wider community, and beyond, including the potential positive as well as negative outcomes as well as how they might like the amplifying to unfold (e.g. having an Aunty or an Elder present, etc.).
Language and translation
What are the language considerations of reaching different audiences? Supporting the availability of work in Indigenous language, as well as supporting the translation of youthled work is a critical consideration in amplifying youth voices with diverse audiences.
Sharing, with the consent of youth
How work produced by youth is shared will look different depending on what the group has decided as the avenue for amplifying their voices. Do young people want to say something at an event like an exhibition or a book launch, or be quoted in a publication like a website or blog or news article?
Print vs digital publications?
There are benefits to both! Physical publications, such as books and zines, can provide youth with the ability to share their work with others, including for gifting publications to guest facilitators, community leaders, youth in their communities, and youth in other communities. Digital publications might be less costly to produce and more easily shared with wider audiences online, without the need for physical distribution.
Organizing Exhibitions and events
Events where different audiences and stakeholders are invited to gather in person or online with Indigenous youth groups to showcase and amplify youth-led work require a lot of coordination and resources, including navigating community and other structures. These logistics are a helpful area for adult allies to contribute to amplifying Indigenous youth voices.
Amplifying youth voices by taking on translation: Girlfesto in Mi’kmaq: The Girlfesto from an event culminating the Networks4Change project was translated and made available in over 10 different languages (including Afrikaans, English, English in Dyslexia font, French, Inuktitut, isiZulu, Kanien’héha, Mi’kmaq, Russian, Swedish, Xhosa).
Top Photo: Amplifying youth voices by organizing book launches: Members of YIWU Gen-2 celebrate their book at Oskayak High School in 2022. Event organizing takes a lot of resources, logistics, and coordination, which is a helpful way for adult allies to amplify youth work and artwork without burdening the youth group members.
Bottom Photo: Collaborations in youth advocacy. The More Than Words project supported members of YIWU (Treaty 6) to travel to the UN Permanent Form on Indigenous Issues in New York City with the Assembly of Seven Generations youth organization to present A Labour of Love. To read more about the report and launch see this article in the National Observer.
SUSTAINABILITY TIP: Ensuring financial support to sustain work led by Indigenous youth
Work led by Indigenous youth needs to be supported financially. Financial support is key to ensuring this research and community work is done in a good way. Some of the costs that need to be considered include potential space rentals, supplies, food, honoraria, and gifts. Adult allies such as community leaders and university-based researchers and administrative teams can support youth groups to navigate the funding landscape and criteria.
In Canada, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report includes 94 Calls to Action for addressing the on-going impacts of the residential school system in Canada and for advancing reconciliation. TRC Call to Action #66 emphasizes the need to fund community organizations to support Indigenous youth and how supporting Indigenous youth is central to the process of reconciliation.
A labour of love: The unpaid and exploited labour of grassroots and communitybased Indigenous youth group, was written by and for Indigenous youth. The report emphasizes the need for stable financial support for Indigenous youth groups. Adult allies can support youth groups in securing long-term funding.
Spotlight:
THE ROLE OF ADULT ALLIES IN BREAK THE SILENCE,
ESKASONI
Break the Silence, the Eskasoni-based youth group in the More Than Words project boasts a wide range of collaborations where amplification has been accessed through working relationships with Indigenous and non-Indigenous adult allies. These adult collaborators have included community Elders, various staff members from Eskasoni Mental Health (EMH), a Mi’kmaw non-profit organization that has been providing health and crisis services in Eskasoni since 1991, and academic and community-based researcher Linda Liebenberg.
Community Space for Youth Mental Health
The youth group facilitators collaborated with ACCESS Open Minds (a national project aimed at improving youth mental healthcare) to develop a space dedicated to youth mental health in the community. This center works with an integrated model of care, the Community Mental Health Wellness Model, and provides a number of youth-friendly services and case management on site, including social workers, family physicians, psychiatrists, and paraprofessionals, as well as a 24/7 hotline.
Eskasoni ACCESS Open Minds Youth Space. Adult allies played a key role in developing dedicated space for youth mental health in Eskasoni. The new building opened in 2017.
Colouring Book
For example, in 2018, youth came together with their adult allies to create Healing with the Seven Sacred Teachings: A Mi’kmaq colouring book for Survivors of sexual and genderbased violence20. This project involved sessions led and facilitated by a number of adult allies to develop the coloring book. Karen Bernard of EMH and a council member with the Nova Scotia Advisory Council for the Status of Women provided the explanations of the Seven Sacred Teachings, which engender Indigenous cultural morals and values of respect for all living beings through teachings on love, respect, courage, honesty, wisdom, humility, and truth as gifts from different animals. Michael R. Denny, Support Worker at EMH translated the teachings into Mi’kmaw. Youth then produced the original art. Graphic artists Kaylyn Bernard and Kassidy Bernard, from Indigenize Creative Services, transformed the original artwork into line art for the colouring book.
Jeannine Faye Denny and Farrah Stevens from EMH developed the writing prompts statements for the readers to engage in reflective writing around ideas such as “I show love to myself by...” and “I feel respected when...” Linda Liebenberg supported coordination between all parties, reimbursing everyone for their work through research grant funding and supporting the printing and distribution of colouring books to a network of organisations. The colouring book has been taken up by health service providers in three Atlantic provinces in Canada, including by the human trafficking unit of the national police service (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in Nova Scotia.
Adult allies played important roles amplifying original artwork produced by youth from Break the Silence, including sharing traditional knowledge, translating, book design, and overall coordination. The drawings featured in the colouring book depict animals and symbols associated with the Seven Sacred Teachings: Wolf (Karli Stevens), Turtle (Brendalee Johnson), Eagle (Terry Toney), Turtle (Abigail Marshall), Headdress (Bella Paul), Eagle and Turtle (Candice Sylliboy), Buffalo and Beaver (Hannah Battiste), and Sasquatch (Nichelle Googoo).
20 Battiste, H., Bernard, B., Bernard, A., Bernard, R., Christmas, K., Denny, D., Denny, N., Googoo, N., Johnson, A., Johnson, N., Morrison, C., Nicholas, K., Stevens, K., Nicholas, R., Stevens, F.; With Liebenberg, L., Reich, J., Denny, J. F., & Bernard, K. (2018). Healing with the 7 sacred teachings: A Mi’kmaq colouring book for Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, and their supporters. http://changethesilence.org/
Memorial Garden
Drawing on research conducted by the youth group over the years, Break the Silence planned an ambitious interactive and educational memorial garden in Eskasoni honouring Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls (MMIWG). Collaborating again with EMH and Linda Liebenberg, the youth group gained local support to create a community space from the band council, ACCESS Open minds, DJ Denny Trucking, and Elder Clark Paul, and additional funding from the MMIWG Commemoration Fund (Canadian Department for Women and Gender Equality). The garden is both the result of efforts to amplify youth voices and a space dedicated to ceremony and healing to amplify the voices of MMIWG, stolen children of the residential school system, and Survivors and their families. In the garden, sacred fires are held, community members gather in remembrance and ceremony, and Elders lead teachings and ceremonies.
Adult allies were critical in amplifying the work of Break the Silence through planning and logistics support to develop the garden, including accessing community land, landscaping and materials, consulting on signage in the community, and ceremonial aspects related to for example the sweat lodge and sweetgrass teachings.
STUDYING CHANGE WITH ORGANIC EVALUATION
Organic Evaluation: an ongoing process of documenting impact in action
Studying change, or evaluation and monitoring, is a process of reflection to document insights about the difference Indigenous youth-led work is making in the lives of young people and their communities. Often, evaluation is thought of as an externally driven and time-consuming component of research or community work that happens at the end of a project. However, evaluation can be re-imagined as a helpful and generative process during youth-led work as well as at the end of a project.
Organic evaluation re-imagines evaluation as the process of ‘catching’ the work as it happens, to provide real-world feedback collected by youth themselves and/or adult allies on ‘what difference’ is being made and how to improve interventions. Organic evaluation strives to be community-centered and community-relevant by centering the stories, artwork, and conversations that are shared by young people. Nothing is too small to note: Comments from event attendees, social media responses and reactions to project activities, and other candid community moments are at the core of organic evaluation. This process of ongoing evaluation aims to reduce the burdens that are often inherent in traditional evaluative methods and maximize existing data and information that has been shared with researchers and project managers in simple and accessible charts to study change and fulfill evaluative needs.
Organic evaluation can work with more formal/structured approaches like organized events and newsletters as well as informal/everyday approaches like keeping track of communications. Critically, organic evaluation can integrate creative approaches like participatory visual methodologies to document and study change.
In More Than Words, organic evaluation involved organizing workshops and retreats with young people and adult allies to look at the data together.
Organic evaluation also involved seeking consent to document how young people and team members engaged with the project on social media.
How can evaluation support Indigenous youth-led work?
Evaluation and monitoring are essential for keeping many different people informed about the potential or actual impacts of a project, from the implementation teams to community leaders, mentors, and young people themselves. Evaluation is also important for tracking the outcomes and benefits of Indigenous youth-led work and communicating these with existing stakeholders and potential funders. Most importantly, evaluation can be a helpful process for youth groups to keep track of and make sense of the work they have been doing. Organic evaluation helps to create an archive of work, events, and activities to refer to and learn from, and for sharing evidence of this work with wider audiences.
“When those books are written or the films are made [by young people], they need to be shown to the youth and analyse their own words. That’s the next step... to be able to articulate the structures, which have caused these things to happen. It goes beyond them... to looking at societal forces, perhaps, and extending that understanding for themselves. And be the change.”
Angelina Weenie
SWEETGRASS
Looking At data with youth
Critical to organic evaluation is the process of Indigenous youth coming together to reflect on their work and the traces of impact. This process of reflection is most powerful when grounded in the same creativity of the youth work, whereby youth create and curate exhibitions of their work and responses to it.
“I
remember being their age and feeling a lot of the same feelings, of not belonging, of not being beautiful or strong. And to hear them come to those realizations now at their age... I think it’s so inspiring. I just
want to nurture that.”
“I’m so happy. I think it’s amazing, what the girls have done... They are brave, to actually go out there and hold those signs up and not afraid to face anybody and take criticism and keeping walking. They are very brave.[...] I think I’m a believer of looking up to your own kids. They taught me how to be strong.”
Filmed interviews as organic evaluation to capture community reactions. During their first book launch in 2019, members of YIWU filmed interviews with their parents, peers, and community members to capture experiences and reactions to their book. These interviews, by and for young people, capture impact in the moment. These interviews were compiled into a 14-minute video, Sohkeyimowin (having strength). This video was then screened later that year at an organic evaluation event at McGill University (2019).
Key Features of this promising practice
Authenticity of youth perspectives
Organic evaluation centers the voices and experiences of youth and creates space for the authentic engagement of young people in the evaluation process. It seeks to remove the barriers to participation and encourages ongoing dialogue with and by young people about the difference their work is making in their lives, and in the lives of those around them. Organic evaluation might extend to engage conversations with youth’s families or communities. Centering youth voices also creates opportunities for new and unexpected impacts or benefits of the work to be identified and amplified.
“This telling of the stories is the first thing.... Analyzing and interpreting those stories on their own is another step. [Young people] need to be given the tools to analyze those stories... and make meaning of those stories.... For the youth to find out for themselves... to go back and look at those stories, and say ‘What has changed? How have you changed?’”
Avoids overburdening youth and community
Organic evaluation maximizes the use of readily available data in order to evaluate interventions in ways that do not impose evaluation in a way that overburdens youth, their communities, and the adult facilitators or organizers. While youth and their communities are involved in organic evaluation through the documentation of their work, the process can rely more on individuals who are outside of the community but associated with projects (such as academic partners) to take on the core work of evaluation of collecting and making the most of the information that has been made available by young people and their communities. This allows young people and adult allies to focus on the work in the community, and to also be involved in evaluation activities to varying degrees depending on their availability and interest.
Angelina Weenie
Incorporates Indigenous knowledge and methodologies
Organic evaluation centers the voices and experiences of youth and creates space for the authentic engagement of young people in the evaluation process. It seeks to remove the barriers to participation and encourages ongoing dialogue with and by young people about the difference their work is making in their lives, and in the lives of those around them. Organic evaluation might extend to engage conversations with youth’s families or communities. Centering youth voices also creates opportunities for new and unexpected impacts or benefits of the work to be identified and amplified.
Combines Mixed Methods
Organic evaluation combines several different methods of evaluation to produce wellrounded and compelling evaluations. Creative or artistic methods of evaluation such as cellphilms, photovoice, and drawing tend to produce more qualitative data. More traditional methods of evaluation like surveys, interviews, and observations typically produce more quantitative data.
Ongoing and informed consent
As with many of the Promising Practices, working with arts-based methods involves ongoing conversations with young people about how their artwork is being used, where, and for what purpose. Consent includes seeking consent from youth to have their work used for studying change.
Creates an archive or inventory of evidence that is accessible to youth
Gathering many different types of data—stories, artwork, conversations—produced by young people, their peers, families and communities all in one place helps to make evaluation accessible. The information and data can be organized and stored in ways that make it easy for young people to use.
Studying change and tracing impact can include capturing and reflecting on online moments, such as this screenshot from the virtual event; A Conversation on Mentoring with Girls and Young Women (2020).
Involves youth in reporting on change
Organic evaluation creates opportunities to involve Indigenous youth in reporting directly to key stakeholders like funding organizations or community leaders. While reporting often occurs through written documents like reports and briefs, creative approaches to studying change seek to involve young people in sharing evidence of change (such as through artwork and story) and to present and discuss impact in their own way.
Shifting dominant norms around evaluation
Through centering youth voices and artwork in studying and reporting on change in an ongoing way, organic evaluation works to decenter adult voices and shift dominant norms around reporting. Explicit conversations with key stakeholders such as funders around why organic evaluation is being used helps to contributing to efforts to decolonize evaluation.
In 2024, members of Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia and the More Than Words implementation team from McGill University travelled to the capital city Ottawa/Gatineau to gather at the funding agency that supported More Than Words, Women & Gender Equality Canada. An exhibition of posters developed through the Organic Evaluation approach, called Taking Action Together, was displayed around the boardroom, supporting youth leaders and adult allies to share about their experiences and learnings through the project. Having young people come to the office of the funder to meet with project officers and policy team members was very meaningful for everyone involved in the project, in particular to report back in the same creative ways that the youth-led work itself took place. The process was organic, authentic, and symbolic.
Tips for using this promising practice
Overview of the organic evaluation process
1 Collecting Data
2 Creating Evaluative Questions
3 Studying Change
4 participant and outsider validation
GET Art’s adult facilitator Jennica shares their work in different print and online community news outlets in Rankin Inlet. These traces inform organic evaluation about the impact and reach of GET Art’s work.
What counts as ‘data’?
No piece of data is too small. Data can include more traditional types of data, and it might include more everyday types of data like messages on platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook and notes on attendance, reactions, and other moments in the community. Data can also include artwork like collages, cellphilms, and photographs that express ideas or perspectives on impact.
Examples of ‘data’ sources for organic evaluation
Surveys
Interviews
Notes and reactions to meetings and activities
Photos of workshops
Newsletter updates
Blog posts
Youth cellphilms
Emails
Youth writing
Text messages
Audio Notes
Youth collages
Social media comments and messages
Youth photographs
Youth drawings
Develop questions for studying change
These questions will help to evaluate the outcomes of the project and should reflect the desired or anticipated outcomes of the work. Consider reformulating anticipated short-, medium- and long-term outcomes as questions. Questions can also be organized in categories.
some example questions for studying change
Art Making and Sharing
What topics have the youth addressed in their art?
What are the major themes in the artwork?
How are youth sharing their artwork and lived experiences?
How have family members and community responded to the art?
What does mentorship and leadership look like?
How do peers, family and community fzeel about youth taking on leadership roles? How do youth feel about being mentors? What changes have family and community noticed in the youth?
What timeframe should we use to study change?
Evaluation sometimes happens according to years but these timeframes sometimes don’t reflect the realities of youth-led work. Organizing evaluation according to activity phases or seasons might be more reflective and meaningful to capture and document impact.
Organic evaluation can include documenting and reporting on activities according to timelines such as seasons, to reflect the ebb and flow of youth work. This example is from YIWU’s second book.
Collect and review new data
As you collect new data throughout your project or initiative, engage with this new information, find ways to connect the stories to the studying change questions. During the process of engaging and re-engaging with the information collected and shared by the youth ensure there is open communication with group facilitators and/or youth.
Gather and review existing data
Gather everything you currently have access to, including artwork, conversations, emails, meeting notes, event reports, self-reporting, interviews, and social media. It might be helpful to provide or develop a template or chart, although keep in mind that some people find charts limiting and time-consuming. Be open to collecting and receiving data in all forms. As you review existing data, categorize the information to answer the studying change questions. Re-categorizing previous evaluative work highlights new perspectives and insights into previous work accomplished, answering new questions related to evaluating the overall project.
Invite a reviewer to look at the work
After the studying change questions have been answered, and the facilitators and participants have consented to having it shared, consider inviting a reviewer—another set of eyes— to look over the evaluation. This person might be a community member, individual with relevant lived experience, or individual with careers as evaluators working in similar areas or with similar communities. This process can provide helpful feedback and help you to fill in any potential information gaps that might be obvious to the folks putting together the evaluation but that outside audiences might not know about.
Think ahead about future evaluation strategies
As you gather and review everything that you have access to consider what strategies could be employed in the future to continue collecting and making sense of the evaluation data in ways that are helpful in supporting youth-led work.
Creating a digital archive for the project: Gathering all the information, artwork, and updates for the newsletters prompted the project team to also develop an accessible digital space to house all past newsletters, which became a sort of archive for organizing and making available other resources developed as part of the project.
SUSTAINABILITY TIP: Start early! Begin documenting the work as soon as the project begins
Create easy pathways for youth groups and adult facilitators/allies to share their work and stories with one designated person. This person can check in regularly with groups informally (such as by text message or via WhatsApp) to ask how the work is going. Sharing small pieces more often, as the work is happening, can help to reduce the evaluation burden over time.
ORGANIC EVALUATION THROUGH an INTERACTIVE ART EXHIBIT IN MONTREAL Spotlight:
Taking Action Together: An exhibition of youth advocacy from More Than Words
“Taking Action Together: An exhibition of youth advocacy from More Than Words” is a reflective art exhibition produced through the Organic Evaluation process of More Than Words. The exhibition was first launched at the Dialogues-4-Change event, held in November 2023 at McGill University in Tiohtiá:ke (Montreal). This exhibit features a series of posters showcasing photos, quotes, and major themes from the artwork, activities, and activism generated by youth groups in Eskasoni, Rankin Inlet, Treaty 6, and other partner sites. Youth participants, community scholars, and academic researchers attended the event.
A visual approach to Organic
The More Than Words project administration team at McGill collected visual data, curated, printed, and displayed the exhibition. An important component of the Organic Evaluation approach is that members of the administration and/or implementation team take on the labour of collating visual data; artwork, information and artifacts from the youth groups and compile thoughtfully to create an evaluative output. Turning this data into an exhibition creates more accessibility and opportunity for the project participants to fully engage with and validate their data, and also to see how their work looks in conversation with the work from the other youth groups. The exhibition was designed to be interactive with a curatorial statement that prompts the audience not only to review and respond to the work but to reflect on actions for future work to support Indigenous-led work.
The evaluation event included time for activities to look at the visual data, time for young people to present their work and reflections, and time for small group work.
Curatorial statement from the art exhibition prompting reflexive audience engagement with the visual data.
Youth voices are central to Organic Evaluation: During the Taking Action Together Exhibit, the youth from Rankin Inlet, Eskasoni, and Treaty 6 who had been involved in More Than Words spoke about their experiences and shared traditional practices together. The exhibit invited audiences to engage with the visual data from More Than Words and to respond to it through talking circles and arts-based activities.
As this exhibition travels to different sites (in universities, in funder offices, in communities), it provides new opportunities for participants to see themselves and their work in new ways. With each iteration of the exhibit, in different spaces and for different audiences, youth are able to analyse their work and that of their colleagues, add new visual data, and update existing posters. The organic evaluation is ongoing.
“I didn’t realise, until now, that I did so many amazing things, that I was a part of amazing things and that I could keep being a part of amazing things.”
Hannah Battiste
Building and Sustai ning partnership s and networks
This Promising Practice is both a fundamental principle and cross-cutting practice in supporting young Indigenous people in their communities and beyond. Therefore, this Promising Practice stands a little bit differently in that it is both a pre-cursor to and key feature of sustaining the other Promising Practices. In some ways, the idea of working with partnerships and networks may seem obvious or take-for-granted. However, the criticality of this Promising Practice and working through relationship is worth highlighting.
are partnerships and networks so crucial
Why for Indigenous youth-led work?
Developing and maintaining partnerships and meaningful relationships with a variety of different individuals and organizations is crucial in supporting Indigenous youth-led work. Partnerships and networks provide resources and support for youth groups and opportunities for youth to foster new relationships with their peers, Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies, organizations, and institutions. This Promising Practice also recognizes the importance of creating new spaces of engagement for Indigenous youth to do the work that they want to do, to build relationships and networks outside their communities, and to learn from and be inspired by interactions with larger activist circles of youth and allies concerned about similar issues. These networks are essential for knowledge sharing and opening up opportunities for Youth-2-Youth connections, and for connecting youth with adult allies within and outside their community.
“All these different perspectives, I like to learn more. There’s a lot of people in my community that are in mental health field, that just stay in the community and they don’t volunteer and they don’t join these types of opportunities, and I want to provide service in the future, and I’m like, ‘OK,this is how they do things in Saskatoon, this is how they do this in Nunavut’… and I want to get all these perspectives and get an overall view, because I think change is necessary and I want to be able to provide that.”
edmund morris23
Types of Partnerships and networks that can support indigenous youth-led work
Community Partnerships
Community partnerships between youth groups and community-based adult allies and organizations generate and sustain ‘on-the-ground’ operational support for youth groups within their community. For example, community partnerships might involve local governance groups such as Band Councils, health or social service clinics, schools, Elders or groups of Elders, and art spaces such as studios, galleries, or councils. These partnerships might support youth groups in securing access to space for meetings or arts-based activism work (such as murals, performances, or screenings), recruiting youth and/or mentors, sharing traditional knowledge and practices, developing or advertising programming, providing funding or resources such as technological equipment or art supplies, or showcasing or distributing youth artwork or projects.
Community partnership between YIWU and Chokecherry Studios in Treaty 6 support youth group work with resources and access to spaces for activities. This YIWU community BBQ at Chokecherry Studios was timed with the visit from members of GET Art from Rankin Inlet (2022).
Community-academic partnerships bring Indigenous youth groups in community together with university- or college-based researchers, who are often outside the community in ways support Indigenous youth-led work. These partnerships need to recognize the historic harm academia and research has done to Indigenous Peoples and critical ongoing questions about the role of researchers in community-led work. Being informed about and acknowledging this history is essential in ensuring those same dynamics are not replicated. Crucially, researchers working through relationships with community leaders can ensure that the work is done in a good way, aligned with community specific values and cultures. This shared knowledge can create space for different types of community-academic partnerships that can challenge academic norms by recognizing young Indigenous people as experts and knowledge holders. These partnerships may also work to counter the under-representation of Indigenous youth in universities and the need for universities to be engaging with young Indigenous people in dismantling academic colonial structures.
Through community-academic partnership, YIWU ran ‘Red Ribbon Skirts for Resistance’ workshops for university students on two occasions at York University (2022). Through sewing miniature ribbon skirts, this workshop focused on supporting students to identify examples of gender and colonial-based violence, how this violence impacts the lives of Indigenous Peoples, and how it can be resisted.
Youth-2-Youth Networks
Partnerships and networks can also foster and support network-building amongst a diversity of Indigenous youth from different contexts. This type of network provides opportunities for Indigenous youth groups in communities to meet and build relationships with Indigenous youth in other communities and contexts. For example, youth groups in different communities might come together to share their work and establish a wider network of youth working on similar issues. Through community-academic partnerships, youth groups from specific communities might connect with Indigenous students on university campuses through structures such as, for example, First Peoples’ Houses, Indigenous student groups, and Indigenous internships programs. These networks help to build solidarity across youth groups and can also organically foster elements of peer mentoring and support.
A More Than Words retreat at McGill University brought together members of the young groups from Eskasoni, Rankin Inlet and Treaty 6, as well as their community-based adult supporters and academic researchers (2023).
“I want to create generations, like the girls from Utopia. They have 2nd generation and 1st generation and stuff like that. I want that, I love that. I love what they are doing, and I love that it’s happening everywhere in all of our communities, that’s amazing. It’s amazing how much support we have, and I wish we had more support, because we deserve it.” hannah
BREAK THE SILENCE, ESKASONI
Hannah from Eskasoni and Andraya (Andie) from Treaty 6 met through Y2Y gatherings organized by the More Than Words project, and eventually collaborated to co-edit a book Circle Back based on their experiences working with youth
Key Features of this promising practice
Creating connections across sectors and spaces to involve diverse strengths and experiences
While it can be beneficial to partner with organizations and individuals doing similar work, it can also be beneficial to partner with individuals and organizations working in different sectors and spaces. Involving diverse partners with different backgrounds and expertise can broaden the range of contributions, insights, mentorship, skills and exchange supporting youth-led work. For example, community leaders can focus on mentoring and facilitating arts-based activities with Indigenous youth in their community, while university-based implementation teams can focus on evaluation and writing reports for funders and art organizations such as galleries can offer expertise and resources in curating and hosting art exhibitions. Building relationships and partnerships within and across communities and sectors can facilitate and strengthen a network of individuals and groups with shared passions and who are committed to supporting Indigenous youth-led work.
Opportunities for youth engagement outside their community
Partnerships provide conditions, resources, and opportunities for Indigenous youth to meet new people, visit and be heard in new spaces, organizations, and institutions, and get involved in activism with peers and allies outside their community. The power of these actions in sparking youth agency, inspiration, and new ideas cannot be underestimated. Partnerships facilitate opportunities for different types of adult-led spaces and institutions to become demystified and more accessible to Indigenous youth.
Opportunities for amplifying youth voices
The involvement of different individuals and organizations within partnerships can identify and even organize different opportunities for amplifying youth-led work outside the community, with new and different audiences that might not have been possible without the relationships of trust within the partnership.
Opportunities to strengthen trust and social connectedness
Partnerships supporting Indigenous youth-led work can increase trust and social connectedness in young peoples’ lives. Much like the importance of connecting youth groups, these networks create horizontal connections for youth to learn from and support each other across different communities and territories. Partnerships involving adult allies can also increase intergenerational connectedness by building strong and trusting relationships between youth and a diversity of adults within and outside their communities.
Collective forms of support
Partnerships mean that more people are involved, or perhaps available to be involved when needed. This provides a greater pool of resources and people with energy and resources to support Indigenous youth-led work. This ensures a wider body of allies and helps to prevent burn-out.
Opportunities for increased access to diverse funding sources
Access to consistent funding is crucial in the long-term sustainability of Indigenous youth-led work. Partners like academic researchers and NGOs have access to calls for different types of research and program funding, as well as technical skills and experience in developing funding proposals.
Tips FOR SUSTAINING AND STRENGTHENING PARTNERSHIPS
Reciprocity
Healthy partnerships should benefit everyone involved. Find ways to support your partners and engage with their work. Try to attend events that they might organize and share their activities within the youth group’s network. When you show up for your partners, they show up for you.
Starting with existing connections and relationships
Think about who is already connected to the youth group and whether there might be formal or informal partnerships already in place. Are there first and second-degree connections that support group members and advocate for their work? Who is already supporting youth or seems interested in being involved? Are there individuals or groups working towards similar goals or using similar arts-based approaches? Are there individuals or groups with different or complementary skills that would further the work? Map out these relationships to see what opportunities for collaboration already exist.
Considering different kinds of partners and partnerships
Depending on the goals, interests, and needs of the youth group work, consider how different types of partners might help the group advance, expand, or sustain the work. Some youth groups might prioritise partnerships that can help to fulfill an immediate need, like accessing meeting space or materials. Building relationships with local schools or community organisations might best support day-to-day operation of youth group activities. Other groups might pursue partnerships to expand the scope of their work through partnerships with academia. The kind of partner will likely inform the way a partnership takes place; for example, from more formal partnerships that involve written agreements and defined terms to more informal partnerships based on trust, mutual benefits, and shared interests in getting together and occasionally sharing knowledge. Regardless of the formality of the partnership, transparent discussion about expectations is always a good idea.
Mapping out possible partnerships can start with relationships and organizations in the community as well as organizations outside the community. Partnerships will evolve over time, such as these partnerships developed by YIWU.
Building and maintaining relationships with partners
Creating strong partnerships and good relationships require time and work, but they need to start somewhere! Initially, youth groups might need to make the first move and reach out to potential partners to explain the goals of their work and their motivations for partnering up. Developing a cohesive description of the youth group, mission, and overall goals for potential partnerships will facilitate these early conversations. The strongest relationships are built on trust, which develops over time. Try to communicate consistently with the folks in your network. Consider keeping your contacts up to date on the youth group work through emails and/or newsletters and invite partners to events and activities where they might engage with youth and youth-led work.
The role of adult allies in partnership with Indigenous youth groups
As with all of these Promising Practices, adults can play important roles in managing logistical and financial aspects of the partnership in ways that support, create space for, and do not overburden Indigenous youth groups. For example, adult allies can organize travel logistics and work with their institutions to ensure the timely and fair compensation of youth for their work in the partnership.
Identifying and creating opportunities for Indigenous youth groups in academic settings Leaning into the
discomfort and
tensions to reflect on and learn how to work differently
Researchers and university-based partners might consider the ways in which the Indigenous youth groups they are working with might be interested in contributing to Indigenizing academic work and spaces, for example, through co-teaching, applying for grants, and organizing campus-based activities to showcase Indigenous youth-led work. Sometimes protocols are based on regulations that require more formal processes to change, and sometimes everyday institutional practices are simply taken for granted or preferred practices that are simply in place because they always have been. Researchers can ask questions about why certain protocols exist, find solutions, ask for exceptions, and help universities to develop new forms or procedures.
SUSTAINABILITY TIP:
Slowing down, allowing partnerships to evolve over time
Fostering good relationships takes time, often several years. Allow time and space to build relationships with community, and for partnerships to take shape. As youth groups evolve, the composition, dynamics, and focus of partnerships may change also change over time. Continually review your partnerships and consider whether there is still a good fit between the missions, values, and goals of the youth group and partners. Consider modifying existing formal and informal agreements to reflect the changing reality of the youth group.
NEWSLETTERS FOR KEEPING IN TOUCH IN PARTNERSHIPS Spotlight:
In More Than Words and in its predecessor project, Networks4Change, newsletters played a key role in building and sustaining youth-led work through partnerships and networks. Newsletters are brief and accessibly written youth-friendly communication tools, typically 1020 pages long (often longer towards the end of projects) with text and visuals, that showcase youth artwork and voices, stories from different youth groups and communities, and other events and successes across the groups or project (such as exhibitions, publications, and new funding grants). Newsletters included some that were project-wide, bringing together stories from across different youth groups, and some that were site-specific, produced by a particular youth group.
In More Than Words, newsletters were shared both internally within the project to young people and adult allies from the community and researchers from different universities involved (McGill, York, Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent), as well as externally to stakeholders and wider audiences (to funders, and through Participatory Cultures Lab listserv). Developed largely by the project implementation team at McGill University, approximately two newsletters were produced each year responding to both cycles and momentum of project activities.
Newsletters amplify youth voices through the partnership
Most newsletters featured youth artwork and youth writing about the meaning of the work in their lives.
Newsletters help to create connections and build connectedness within the partnership
Developing digital newsletters without too much heavy background color is helpful for printed distribution in communities who might not have internet access, or for leaving them in waiting rooms and office lobbies.
Newsletters garner collective support for Indigenous youth-led work
In More Than Words, newsletters kept those directly involved informed and helped to build a network of academics, stakeholders like funders, community organizations, and youth groups. The September 2021 newsletter presented timelines for each youth group to show how the groups adapted to changing circumstances related to COVID-19 restrictions in their communities.
Newsletters played a key role in Organic Evaluation
In More Than Words, newsletters became valuable reporting mechanisms. Reaching out to youth groups and their adult allies on a regular base to inquire about updates helped the project staff to stay up-to-date about the work and for everyone to be accountable to what they wanted to do.
The work of dismantling colonial academic structures
The ongoing work of Indigenous girls and young women as part of the More Than Words project provoked many critical reflections about the role of researchers and academic institutions in supporting and learning from this participatory work. Clearly there is a great deal of work that is required to dismantle colonial academic structures. As teams of largely non-Indigenous researchers affiliated in different ways with McGill University, York University, Dalhousie University, and Mount Saint Vincent University, we have reflected particularly on the histories of colonial racism within academic institutions, and the possibilities for transforming these spaces through engagement with Indigenous youth-led work.
“What does it mean to invite Indigenous girls into colonial university and urban spaces that have historically been hostile sites?
How can we create welcoming, affirming opportunities for reciprocal learning?
How can [the] presence, teaching, and knowledge systems [of Indigenous youth] open new possibilities for both decolonizing and Indigenizing classrooms and campuses?
What can we all learn from these sorts of encounters?”
Sarah Flicker, Amanda Galusha, Anders Sandberg, Jenn Altenberg, & YIWU25
Community-academic partnerships supporting and guided by Indigenous youth-led work involves many tensions and power dynamics. Through the More Than Words project, we have learned that it is critical to break down the institutional silos that often exist between and among research, teaching, and institutional leadership in universities. University faculty members often occupy multi-dimensional positions – as researchers, as teachers, and as institutional leaders – and as such are well placed to merge our dismantling journeys to advocate for change.
“Decolonizing is big and sometimes feels abstract. Dismantling is just as it sounds – taking things apart piece by piece. As an organization, we can find more respectful (and immediate) ways of paying elders who participate in events. We can make sure that as researchers, we budget appropriately in a research grant to reimburse Indigenous youth for their time. We can recognize the concept of ownership in actionable ways such as making sure we ask a youth group for their consent each time in relation to screening a cellphilm they have produced: they have a right to know the audience, or things may have changed for them, and they no longer are comfortable having a cellphilm circulating.”
claudia mitchell LEAD RESEARCHER, MORE THAN WORDS , MCGILL UNIVERSITY
How do young Indigenous people want to interact with academic settings?
how can academic settings learn from Indigenous youth?
In the More Than Words project, many of us who were university-based researchers and administrators were at first hesitant to organize events or gatherings on university campuses. We were not sure whether or not the girls and young women involved would want to or feel comfortable visiting campus because we recognize the ways in which these spaces can be colonized and colonizing spaces. We knew that the girls and young women had had previous experiences feeling unwelcome in academic spaces.
Where are all the girls and Indigenous people at IGSA@ND?
“We were struck
by
the absence
of girls and the dearth of Indigenous people outside of our group at the conference. Our group experienced these absences in different ways. Jessica and Cindy [Indigenous girls] described feeling highly visible and, at times, overwhelmed; and the adult members felt protective and guilty for bringing the girls into an uncomfortable space. For Kari and Jenn this was compounded by loneliness at being Indigenous women in a colonial space. Sarah and Catherine, as white academics, were much more included, yet felt upset and powerless to prevent their colleagues from experiencing harmful episodes.”
However, something also seemed to shift through our work together in the partnership. Over the years and over many different types of activities that the More Than Words project organized on/through university campuses, we saw enormous potential emerge for deeper work and impact in dismantling the colonial structures of academic institutions. Partly, we heard from the Indigenous girls and young women we were working with how much they learned through their experiences traveling outside their community and participating in academic practices. We also saw how these engagements provoked universities to engage with Indigenous youth-led work in ways that both amplified the work and began to shift academic practices and norms.
“I think it changed the way I think about being a researcher. Sometimes when you are doing research you want to show that you are intelligent and really good at what you do, but for me it was kind of more about relationship building and alliance making which made me realise I am more of a helper and it’s about helping people find their gifts and share them with the world.”
Zachary Mandamin
YOUNG INDIGENOUS RESEARCHER COLLABORATING WITH YIWU
Consulting Indigenous communities and establishing culturally appropriate protocols
Appropriate compensation for time was one of the biggest issues in the More Than Words project. We wanted to ensure that our work with Indigenous communities was not an exploitative relationship and that the project adequately and respectfully recognized Indigenous contributions to the work. This dismantling work involved heightened awareness at the partner universities, and in particular the institutional lead McGill University about the need to adjust institutional compensation structures and protocols, for example, to cover the costs of official documentation (passports, birth certificates, ID), necessary for Indigenous youth to participate in projects, and for paying Indigenous Elders and community members for their time.
“For
me, dismantling academic structures means challenging institutional processes that don’t make sense for supporting Indigenous youth-led work. We find work-arounds for the day-to-day administrative and financial processes or institutional policies that have not been designed with Indigenous people in mind, while advocating for change.”
leann brown
MORE THAN WORDS PROJECT COORDINATOR, MCGILL UNIVERSITY
Developing project materials in Indigenous languages also contributes to dismantling colonial structures.Translation (from Inuktitut to English): The overarching aim of this partnership is to study and advance the use of innovative approaches to knowledgeproduction, policy-making, and communication in addressing sexual violence against girls and young women.
Transforming research ethics
Research with Indigenous Peoples in Canada is governed by the ethical principles of Ownership, Consent, Access, and Possession (OCAP), which establish standards for collecting, sharing, protecting, using, and sharing Indigenous data and information.26 Reflecting on and going beyond these principles through the participatory visual work with girls and young women in the More Than Words project contributed to transforming understandings of university research ethics, particularly around ownership and consent.
26 See for example the 2004 article “Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) or Self-Determination applied to research: A critical analysis of contemporary First Nations research and some options for First Nations communities” written by Brian Stewart Schnarch.
“Checking a box on a consent form once does not give the facilitators the right to share the girls’ words, faces, and work in perpetuity. The girls control what happens to the work they create. They can expect to be asked permission. They can exercise safely their right of refusal. This modeling of consent as free, prior, informed, ongoing, and relational is foundational to many Indigenous cultures and to challenging cultures of violence. Consent also challenges notions of Indigenous girls as vulnerable and in need of constant protection. Consent is a decolonizing practice that recognizes Indigenous girls as strong, beautiful, smart iskwew (the Cree word for woman).”
Facilitating Creative Spaces for Indigenous Youth-Led work on university campuses
Co-teaching classes, facilitating art-making workshops, and contributing to the development of critical and alternative campus tours are all ways that communityacademic partnerships can work to center Indigenous knowledges and histories on university campuses. Indigenous youth accessed university campus spaces and infrastructures for hosting events such as book launches, art exhibitions, or resistance activities or performances - access that might be otherwise difficult to obtain. This involvement works to both support Indigenous youth knowledge and work and shifts how universities recognize Indigenous knowledge.
and
Critical or Alternative Campus Tours
Indigenous students at York and McGill universities who were involved in the More Than Words project have led or participated in the development of critical campus tours that take up the sites and monuments on campus that carry important lessons about the institutional histories of universities in perpetuating colonial violence. These tours aimed to be participatory, thoughtful, and hopeful starting places for learning more complete versions of institutional histories of universities, for exploring things that are taken for granted, and for decolonizing university spaces.
Indigenous students from McGill designed and lead a critical campus tour highlighting questions about the meaning of monuments commemorating pre-colonial settlements.
Youth
adult allies stop by the Hochelaga Rock on McGill Campus during the first Critical Campus Tour as part of the More Than Words Spring Retreat (2023).
Countering the underrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples and youth at academic conferences
Co-teaching classes, facilitating art-making workshops, and contributing to the development of critical and alternative campus tours are all ways that communityacademic partnerships can work to center Indigenous knowledges and histories on university campuses. Indigenous youth accessed university campus spaces and infrastructures for hosting events such as book launches, art exhibitions, or resistance activities or performances - access that might be otherwise difficult to obtain. This involvement works to both support Indigenous youth knowledge and work and shifts how universities recognize Indigenous knowledge.
Girls and young women from YIWU and their adult allies presented their work at the International Girls Studies Association Conference (South Bend, Indiana, 2019).
Girls and young women from Eskasoni, Rankin Inlet, and Treaty 6 presented at the International American Educational Research Association international academic conference in San Diego, USA (virtual, 2022).
Creating Authorship opportunities for Indigenous youth in academic publications
Partnerships can provide opportunities for Indigenous youth to co-author academic publications, such as book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. Youth groups may also obtain support from university-based research assistants to exhibit, publish, or distribute their work, such as for example support sourcing printing options, working with graphic design software, or copy-editing.
“With research and being at university, obviously that comes with privilege, regardless of your background. I would say that, in research people often think it’s about their interests and it’s about them… For me, it was about the youth and what they cared about.”
Zachary Mandamin
Increasing Indigenous Youth Involvement in Funding Processes
Through the work of partnerships, we can also transform who has access to research infrastructure by creating possibilities for Indigenous youth groups to participate in research grants, communicate directly with research funders, and to be named as official collaborators on research grants.
truth + reconciliation commission Call to Action #65
“We call upon the federal government, through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and in collaboration with Aboriginal people, post-secondary institutions and educators, and the National Centre for Trust and Reconciliation and its partner institutions, to establish a national research program with multi-year funding to advance understanding of reconciliation.”
Five youth from Break the Silence; Be the Change in Eskasoni participated as researchers in developing and submitting successful research grants to the federal funding agencies Canadian Insititutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canda (SSHRC). This process involved discussion sessions to develop the grant and to support youth to develop academic CVs showcasing their publications, research experience, and leadership.
Youth from Eskasoni named as collaborators on federal research grants
The importance of the everyday in dismantling colonial racism in academic institutions
Through community and academic partnerships developed over many years and multiple research projects, we began to see how these small and everyday but very concrete actions contributed to efforts towards decolonizing academic practices and spaces. Within collective efforts towards decolonization, the everyday offers one entry point to shifting academic norms and how Indigenous youth-led work can influence social change. The More Than Words project provided a collective space to find ways to amplify Indigenous youth-led work beyond their communities in ways that work to provoke, speak-back to, and transform wider social norms and structures.
CIRCLING BACK TO More than words
Youth get the last word
This is our GET Art video!
What is the GET Art program? It’s girls expressing themselves through art through girls groups in Rankin Inlet
I think it’s important because we all come together and work together. Because we’re powerful.
Safe and comfortable space and that’s really important for us girls.
We do crafts like wall hanging, painting, and making videos. And because they have delicious, healthy snacks.
The End!
Script
from cellphilm, Why we love GET Art
To the Children
Never be afraid of who you are, love yourself and never change for anyone. Follow your dreams, anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Always be kind and give out good positive energy into the world. Never think you are better than anyone, we are all the same.
To My Children
I want you to know I love you, never be scared to tell me anything and that it’s okay to make mistakes, never give up. Be strong. Don’t change yourself for anyone. Be yourself. Don’t let anyone bring you down. I will always be here for you.
TERYN, TERESINA, APRIL, AND JEMMA, RANKIN INLET, 2024
From GET ART, Rankin Inlet: Why We Love GET ART
Love, Mom
Cindy Mocassin
YIWU, TREATY 6, 2022 28
From YIWU, Treaty 6: Love letters to our future children and communities
From YIWU’s 2022 self-published book KÎYÂNAW ocêpihk produced by Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia, Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia 2.0 and Zachary Mandamin, edited by Dr. Belinda Daniels.
From Break the Silence, Eskasoni: Afterward
A writer’s words have many different meanings, more than any dictionary will ever have. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Being afraid stops us from enjoying many things in life. I believe that if your dreams don’t scare you, then they aren’t dreams.
You have to be willing to work hard and to allow yourself to write what you desire. Allow yourself to write badly. Allow yourself to be criticized. And most importantly, allow yourself to breathe. It’s OK to overthink everything you do. I did. But I was overwhelmed because all I ever wanted from life was to be published. I was told by someone I very much looked up to that I was never going to make it as a writer. That hurt me, but I wasn’t allowing myself to be criticized—I was allowing that person to shatter my dreams.
No one can take your dreams away from you unless you let them. I wrote for years and years before someone finally noticed me, and that changed my life forever. I wouldn’t have known what I had inside me if it weren’t for that little push.
I want to inspire people to tell their stories, to paint their scars, to scream out their passion, because I know how dark it gets inside sometimes. Writing has allowed me to express myself any way I want. Writing my poems saved my life because I painted a picture of all my tragedies and pain just to get to this point in life. Everything is meant to happen for a reason.
Be patient. Be strong.
Be spontaneous. Be brave.
And be you!
RESOURCES
Artifacts from the More Than Words project, including youth publications and artwork, podcasts, toolkits, and reports, can be found online at https://www.mcgill.ca/morethanwords/ and https://mcgill.ca/x/wpP
For academic publications, please refer to the More Than Words publications list at https://mcgill.ca/x/wpW.
DESIGNED BY
This guide showcases a Trail of Promising Practices for engaging with Indigenous youth to address critical issues in their communities through arts-based methods. Drawing on ongoing work addressing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) with and by Indigenous girls and young women in Canada, this Trail explores the complexity of youth-centred spaces where Indigenous youth are supported to address specific issues of SGBV as well as other forms of violence in their lives and communities.
In particular, these Promising Practices draw on evidence of the successes of arts-based approaches in placing young people as critical knowers, makers, and actors in envisioning, revisioning, and enacting social change. These practices are critical for centring Indigenous youth voices and leadership in pursuit of creating communities where Indigenous youth can thrive.
