Indigenous Women and Youth Resilience Project
In December 2019, the Faculty of Native Studie’s Resilience Project and its partners celebrated with the students from the University of Alberta’s first Walls to Bridges course: NS280 Indigenous Resilience, at the Edmonton Institution for Women (EIFW). Twenty-eight students from EIFW and the U of A earned certificates and university credit, and a feast was provided by EIFW’s Little Sisters group. In attendance were representatives from the Provost’s Office, Native Studies, Libraries, Community Service Learning, Financial Services and the Registrar’s Office, all of whom helped build Walls to Bridges at the U of A.
Launching this program was a team effort and the closing celebration gave us a chance to celebrate the students who blew us away with their commitment and ingenuity. The celebration space was decorated by the students’ final projects which explored Indigenous resilience through topics like environmental protection, political art, futurisms, child welfare, and medicines. The projects were imaginative and expressed knowledge and vision. The Walls to Bridges program continues this semester with a Women’s and Gender Studies course: Indigenous Women, Autobiography, and Life Writing.
Last semester, the Resilience Project also saw five students from Buffalo Sage Wellness House complete NS260 Contemporary Indigenous Art. This semester, nine students are enrolled in Dr. Tracy Bear’s NS380 Indigenous Erotics course. Indigenous peoples continue to be overrepresented in Canadian prisons and the Resilience Project works with its partners to not only support incarcerated Indigenous women but to build community between students on campus and inside EIFW.
