The Carleton University Students’ Association hosted its first-ever Indigenous-centred campaign throughout the month of March.
The campaign aimed to give a platform to Indigenous students and provide an opportunity for the student body to learn about issues and celebrate Indigenous cultures.
Aliqa Illauq, an Inuk Carleton student from Nunavut, participated in the campaign and lead an #InuitStrong virtual event. She said the campaign is an important conversation to be having on campus.
“So often I have noticed that people automatically assume a lot of things about me. It seems like because of the lack of information that has been put out, there’s a lot of room for racism,” Illauq said.
Tinu Akinwande, vice-president (student issues) and campaign lead, said the campaign was “long overdue.”
The campaign is officially named Minwàdjiyà-n (pronounced Mihn-wah-jih-yah), meaning to cherish one’s native land in the traditional Algonquian language.
Akinwande said the campaign hopes to be a “concrete step” towards reconciliation between CUSA and Indigenous students at Carleton.
“The experiences of Indigenous communities are often neglected and the prejudices that they face is definitely something that’s pushed under the rug. The severity of it all is very undermined,” she said.
Akinwande said she thinks CUSA’s relationship with Indigenous students isn’t as strong as it should be.
“This is as big a student issue as mental health, as sexual assault awareness, as financial stability,” she added.
The campaign hosted events such as #InuitStrong, an Instagram live conversation on Inuit experiences in Nunavut and their protests surrounding land rights, a REDress project-inspired awareness activity on Instagram, and ‘Fry Bread Friday,’ tutorials on how to make fry bread.
Last week, the campaign held a virtual flea market featuring small Indigenous-owned businesses in Ottawa and across Canada, as well as within the Carleton community.
A virtual keynote by Autumn Peltier, a water protector and Anishinaabe environmental activist from the Wiikwemkoong First Nation in Ontario, will wrap up the month-long campaign on March 31.
In planning the campaign, Akinwande said she worked with CUSA president Kathleen Weary and Indigenous students to create a campaign that was reflective of what Indigenous students wanted.
“That was step one. We hosted a town hall for Indigenous students and we got to hear their voices, suggestions and contributions,” Akinwande said.
Illauq said she thinks having a platform to have conversations like #InuitStrong is a great learning opportunity for the Carleton community, but it is just a start.
In May 2020, the Carleton University Strategic Indigenous Initiatives Committee released a final report titled Kinàmàgawin: Learning Together, which included recommendations and calls to action to support Indigenous students at Carleton.
The report emphasized a need for more Indigenous initiatives on campus, saying that Carleton will need to invest resources for Indigenous-centred events.
“We call for space and funding to hold at least one large university-wide Indigenous event per year in order to facilitate relationship building, learning and appreciation of Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing across the university,” the report said.
For Illauq, campaigns like Minwàdjiyà-n show student groups like CUSA are on the right track, but she said she wants to see more from the school itself.
“Carleton has a long way to go to start looking at our lived experiences and daily challenges that we face, and start understanding it, instead of telling us continuously to prove it,” she said.
Featured image from screenshot.
