 So to begin, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your program? When the Friendship Center hosted the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples' Meetings back in like 92 or 93, one of the big things that was coming out of there was that as many resources there was at the Friendship Center, there wasn't anywhere for children. There wasn't programming for children. There wasn't a place for children to go so parents could continue education and that was one of the big things that came out of that meetings and that's where the Make My Child Development Center was born from. So we opened, we heard in 93 that we were opening and we opened in early 94 and I was honored to be one of the first people to come on board on staff and basically walk into an empty building without even any furniture and figure out what we wanted to try and create. And the first thing that we knew we needed when the original people started coming and seeing the center, they kept asking who is the program for and we kept saying, you know, the officer of the urban community, urban Aboriginal community and I kept saying yeah but who, like whose building is this? Like people wouldn't believe that it was totally for the community, for our programs and so it came to us that we really needed to try and create a sense of community away from your home community or for people who didn't have a home community to be their their original community. Did that answer any of that? Yes. So can you tell me sort of a little bit more about who attends your programs? People who attend our program, it's very, it's really varied, it's very wide. You know, it's people who've been born unreserved or totally fluent in Mi'kma'a language, maybe have never lived off reserve and are here and on the other end of the spectrum it's folks who a grandparent passed and they found out that they're Aboriginal and that it was hidden for generations and everything in between and you know, we have people whose grandparents lived or grandparents or parents lived unreserved, they never have. Many people who don't have the language and some people who do, we find income-wise it's very varied as well, you know so we find we have people who are still struggling with literacy issues and we have people who are completing their masters you know and what we see as valid is that on paper a family may look, you know, we may have a family with highly educated, you know, both parents may have degrees now but we call it kind of second generation at risk so it's on paper things look very good but you know, Indigenous trauma and cultural generational trauma is still so close that if we purely went on as the government would kind of like us to go on more of an income-based need but in the community it's broader than that like we see it as broader than that because people can look like everything has come together very well in life but trauma is, you know, generational trauma is just that step back and so basically families, ideally they come to us maybe when they're expecting babies and hopefully they stay right through till the kids are like 13 and some families come and go, some stay for the long term, some when their kids age out they become our board and we have a community, our advisory committee is called, I apologize my pronunciation, Weidun and that is community in Mi'kmaq so we have, we called our WAC our Weidun Advisory Committee so some parents who have, you know, come from very low level education, not a lot of power behind them when they might have come here, end up, you know, years later leading our advisory committee so our population is really and I should say it's Mi'kmaq, it's Malaseed, it's Inuit, it's Inuit, it's Soto, Ojibwe, Cree, Mohawk and on and on we have people from all those, all those nations. So can you tell me a little bit more about the aim of the program, what do you guys try and teach people, how do you try and teach people? I think what we try to do is just be the place where we can funnel resources through. We try to bring in every resource we've ever been asked, whether it's language, whether it's culture, whether it's just for some people, weekly sitting down to a meal with the same group of people is very empowering, you know, and it gives them that sense of community, the ability to come in here and hear language and to see Mi'kmaq. I think aside from providing a sense of community, the other thing that we really wanted to do is just be here for what people want, whether it's advocacy, you know, going out for their needs, whether it's supporting them through childbirth, which I got to do a home birth recently, I know. So the needs are really, really varied and almost everyone who comes in here with some needs at some point turns around and finds a way to get back to others who are looking for something. Can you tell me one of your favorite examples of success within your program and what made it such a success? So I could probably think of many big examples. I think the things that strike me most sometimes are the small things. We close in August, it's kind of become our mandatory vacation time because it is the, it was traditionally the quietest month of the year. When we started 25 years ago, people were still in masses going to Maine, blueberry picking. And so it became the quiet time of the year and so we kind of made it a mandatory staff vacation so that the other 11 months of the year we can run full tilt. And I can see, you know, the first day of September, literally the back door swinging open and just cracking into the wall and kids just running in like with a sense of excitement and parents coming up smiling behind them and and everybody just funneling in and just feeling like family reunited. We had immunization here during H1N1 and it was noted that Aboriginal people were at risk but the government had decreed that unless you were pregnant or this or that and so someone came in the center and said the government in my country has said that I am at risk for H1N1 but I am not important enough to be a key variable. And so Aboriginal people were largely not able to get the shot, whether we agree with immunization or not as a whole other topic. And so with public health, they came in and they did a clinic for, I don't know, 200 people or whatnot. It was crazy. It was bustling. It was busy. And when it was done, they asked us to sit with them, all their nursing staff on a debrief and they asked us if we would talk about the center because they said we've never been anywhere like this. This is really unique and they said we felt like we were in the middle of a huge family reunion. They said usually it's a really medical feel and she said it was very much like the medical part was just this side piece here. She said it was like a 200 person family reunion and that always stuck to me as kind of a success too. It was something we didn't really want to be doing and immunization isn't our thing but we were able to provide a service in a really good way that was valued by people. There's so many examples. I was here one Wednesday night and we were having language and I ran upstairs to get scoops for supper as we always forget and there was a mom sitting on the steps just sobbing. I sat down beside her and asked her what's going on and she said that she was around a little late and as she ran down the stairs she could hear Mi'kma'a going in the big room and she said it just took her right back to like being a kid running downstairs grandparents hearing everybody speaking in the kitchen and she was just overwhelmed you know and to me it didn't happen just anywhere it happened here so that she could be hugged on the stairs and go downstairs and join family and have supper and hopefully leave not hurting from that but maybe feeling a little more positive from it. We've had generations of kids grow up from our power trips our annual power trips you know. We've had kids go 10, 12, 14 years that you know even if their life might involve drugs and alcohol they know and they've seen a way of life that is traditional and is red road and that is attainable and exists you know and they've had a part of it and they've made it happen for 14 years so we're coming up to our 25th annual power trip this year and I love what that has done for families. Families whose kids have regalia hanging in their closets and whose parents are very careful to keep drugs and alcohol away from their regalia and kids who are singing in Mi'kma'a we've been asked to sing the kids sing for an upcoming political event and you know politics aside it's it's pretty cool that these kids are able to you know grow up around a place where they can still we're singing the honor song it's just at three they're you know got it pretty down pat right and when we started 25 years ago I can pretty much say that no kids were coming in knowing that there was we didn't see kids at least in the urban setting who were dancing who were drumming who were speaking Mi'kma'a all those little things I guess really there's a lot of huge stories of success of parents getting kids back and that we've been able to accompany them and you know families reunited but I guess I'd have to say all those small details are what really stand out most for me. Can you tell me what makes indigenous education different from other forms of education? I think the biggest piece that would the biggest pieces that would make it different is both the hands-on nature of indigenous education and like the validity the sincerity of where it's coming from if that makes any sense um that usually the people who are teaching have lived experiences and you know have have have actual knowledge to pass on to the kids not book knowledge so I got to look at the four plus the Gucci Mook program they're out in the woods you know at four we know that getting off concrete for children you know and climbing over trees enhances neural development and opens pathways and so you know with urban kids you've got a group of kids growing up often in small apartments you know we've got so many people coming back to school doing these things and they're you know grabbing smaller apartments and so the kids don't have as much opportunity to get out and see nature and walk through nature and make fires and the kids are out there using a kelly can and making their own teas and and they're they're picking medicines and they're singing gasoline and singing the water song right to the water you know and that's not something that they can get from a book that they're going to get later in the school system from a book I don't believe so it's it's very hands-on it's direct and it's from people like Francis and Mel who have real lived life experiences and are passionate about handing that on. Can you tell me what do you hope for the future of Indigenous education? I mean we see we see so many positive changes you know someone was talking about how they see more anger today than we did 25 years ago and to me I mean sadly I think it's a good thing because when a pendulum swings so far one way that there's apathy people can't get mad about all the injustices you know so as the pendulum swings back to the other side there has to be anger to fire things before a pendulum can settle in the middle and create a new norm so I like to believe that you know I'd like to see I'd like to see every child with Aboriginal ancestry be able to you know attend programs such as this not identical to this but you know such as this I've seen kids who have grown up with maybe just knowledge of ancestry come and become so proud of who they were you know even if it's only a portion of their ancestry and I think that everybody needs to belong and needs to feel they belong and know they belong somewhere and I think that when kids can grow up through this kind of early education system that I think it's building a foundation that's just going to take them so much further in life. What information or resources do you think are needed in order to achieve your hope for the future besides funding? Yes funding of course we out we always have to say that I mean as nonprofit I guess that's a given right and I wish I don't know the awareness of how much work is done here and at the friendship center like people in funding positions don't understand the full capacity of the work you know like they were going to fund us for an eight week program and they don't understand that the scope of that work goes so much beyond eight weeks you know it takes months to get somebody familiar with a person enough to feel comfortable to join a group with them and they need to be able to do so many stages along the way and then hopefully if they build a foundation be an advocate for that person afterwards so what what a funder can see is an eight week you know time slot we see as a a year-long position so obviously funding goes without saying but I mean we see things like Cornwall is gone you know I know there's an age group of children who are seeing things like that and taking that in and understanding like the strength in being able to remove something like that and one of the parents one of the parents said to me um they say we're trying to rewrite history and you know we're not trying to rewrite history we're creating a new history you know to go along with that like I thought that was I thought that was very cool so I guess we need we need so much more awareness we need so much more education we need we need so many more Aboriginal liaisons in the schools I mean we're only we're only one little center you know and I know there's Aboriginal head starts all across Canada but um we've been told by probably three or four people who've traveled across Canada and lived across Canada that were were pretty unique down here and the scope of services and I would just love to I would just love to see that available for so many more kids and wait what was the end of the question uh information or resources needed to achieve your hope for the future I find that even when we do our evaluations we have a hard time saying the full scope of what it is we're doing so how can I expect funders to understand when I can't even get it on to paper you know we've been going like we go to a lot of births we've been we're hoping to go meet with some midwives in Toronto you know hoping maybe that will be included in the new center um we're going to midwifery meetings in Toronto with some midwives Diane Simon who's making up who's coming down for that um I guess I'd like to see everything starting right from right from right from the very start and um just providing opportunities for as many as many kids as possible to to have the options of kind of growing up in their culture and I I see it all the time just how strengthening it is for people how unbelievably strengthening it is for people to to really know who they are and to see the positives of who they are so I guess I hope that for the next the next generations to come