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Follow along as we work towards systems change and help create better outcomes for kids in our community.

Favourite Moments of 2018

February 14, 2019

It’s time for our annual year-end recap where we compile a list of our favourite moments from over the past twelve months! This year, rather than each of us providing our top three moments, we’ve compiled the list as a team and we’re going review our ultimate top five #wpgboldness memories from 2018!

  1. Evaluating the Child Centred Model at Picnic in the Park

As in years past, we participated in the Picnic in the Park event that takes place at St. John’s Park each summer. Hosted by the North End Community Renewal Corporation, Picnic in the Park features many fun family activities, free entertainment from local musicians, and free food.

We attend the event in order to connect with local residents, which includes setting up a booth and providing some fun prizes and activities that help inform our research. This year our activity was an informal evaluation of our child centred model, which involved a fun spinny wheel to gather input from community members at the event. We also had two members of our Parent Guide Group on hand to help facilitate and hand out prizes.

  1. Mural Completion and Installation

The project partnered with Graffiti Art Programming (GAP) throughout the winter of 2017/2018 to create a mural for public display. The mural was designed and painted by Pat Lazo from GAP, our Parent Guide Group and their families. This was one of the first times that we were able to have our Parent Guide Group invite their kids to help us create an art project, which ended up being a really fun experience.

The mural was inspired by a poem written collectively by the Parent Guide Group about the North End and everything they love about their community. It features a smudge bowl and feather, surrounded by some of the group’s favourite places in the North End, bordered by the medicine wheel colours.

The mural was officially released at an event hosted by the Indigenous Family Centre (they also created a mural of their own with help from GAP) in the spring of 2018, and then installed at the SSCOPE building at 1466 Arlington St.

  1. Indigenous Evaluation Bundle Feast

In partnership with the Indigenous Learning Circle, Manitoba Research Alliance, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the project was able to support the creation of a community-driven Indigenous evaluation bundle, which was titled Na-gah mo Waabishkizi Ojijaak Bimise Keetwaatino: Singing White Crane Flying North. Documented by researchers Gladys Rowe and Carla Kirkpatrick, the bundle provides a wholistic and community-focused evaluation guide that is based in Indigenous methodologies.

We celebrated the release of this document through a ceremony and feast held at the new Merchants Corner. We were joined by students from the CEDA Pathways to Education program, which was the first organization to apply the bundle in practice and helped to inform the final document.

  1. Signing the City of Winnipeg Indigenous Accord

Winnipeg’s City Council has engaged in a reconciliation journey that includes the development of an Indigenous Accord, which was adopted on March 22, 2017. It is a living document based on the Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action that outlines the city’s commitment to reconciliation, and calls on organizations and businesses in the city to do the same

The Winnipeg Boldness Project committed to joining the Indigenous Accord soon after its creation, and our project director and stewardship group chair were both able to officially sign the accord at a ceremony in the summer of 2018.

  

  1. Child Centred Model Document Ceremony

As discussed in a blog post earlier this year, we’ve recently begun a process of reporting on the work completed throughout the past five years by creating a series of documents for each of our prototypes. One of the first documents to be finalized was on the topic of the Child Centred Model (not technically a prototype, but integral to the project), our theory of change and the overall value base of the project and the broader community.

We marked the completion of this document by gathering everyone who played a large part in collectively writing and designing it and having Elder Mae Louise Campbell (who is a member of our Traditional Knowledge Keepers Guide Group) lead us in a ceremony to honour and celebrate the document.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Land Acknowledgement

The Winnipeg Boldness Project resides in and works on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe), Anishinabewaki (Oji-Cree), Dené, Michif Piyii (Métis), Nêhiyawak (Cree), and Očhéthi Sakowin (Dakota). We recognize that we have benefited from and continue to benefit from colonization on the Treaty 1, Treaty 3, and Treaty 5 Territories.

It is important to also acknowledge how we benefit in this territory at the cost to Indigenous Peoples. Winnipeg has been drinking clean water for over a century via an aqueduct from Shoal Lake. In 1917, 3000 acres of Treaty 3 was declared property of the city of Winnipeg to build the aqueduct. This aqueduct was built over ancestral burial ground, to build these structures, the ancestors were disinterred and reburied. Construction of the aqueduct changed the waters significantly, causing the peninsula to become a man-made island. This now isolated Nation faced many challenges as a direct result from this aqueduct; Necessities like water, groceries, schools, and mail were only accessible via the dangerous trek to the mainland. Lives of adults and children were lost crossing to and from the mainland. Freedom Road, an all-weather road access finally opened summer 2019, over a century after displacement. This road, a testament to the success of Indigenous-led solutions, helps bring materials to build schools and a water treatment plant.

“I always think of it, even when I turn on the tap I’m like this comes from our community and this water probably contains our ancestors and the spirits of our ancestor. I think about the hardships of the people from Shoal Lake 40 who have gone through so many things for the benefit of Winnipeg’s drinking water,” says Angelina McLeod.1

Another benefit we reap in Winnipeg at a cost to Indigenous Peoples and land is the Hydro Electricity Development in Treaty 5. To optimize water movement for greatest power production the Province of Manitoba increased waterflow by creating the Churchill River Diversion in 1976. The modification of the waterflow caused flooding, shoreline erosion, and changes to water quality. This destruction of habitat has caused disruption to waterway travel, fishing, and hunting.

  1. https://www.aptnnews.ca/facetoface/spirits-of-our-ancestor-shoal-lake-40-is-rectifying-a-century-of-hardships/