 My name is Denise. I am a program coordinator at the University of Manitoba. I am a first-generation graduate of the University and a proud Metis woman from Winnipeg. One of the programs that I manage at the University of Manitoba is the Empowering New Financial Wellness Program, Your Finances, Your Future. It's new to the Indigenous Student Center as of September 2018. So the Empowering New Program came to fritician out of the realization of the potential impact targeted programming relating to financial literacy for Indigenous students could have on the students at the University of Manitoba. The objectives of the program are to provide or empower Indigenous students with the tools and resources necessary for them to make informed, knowledgeable financial decisions with their money throughout their university journey as well as beyond. Another objective is that we deliver culturally appropriate programming for the Indigenous students, which allows them to reflect on their past, present, and future relationship with money, which then would alleviate some of the financial stress that they may be feeling within their life. And ultimately, the goal of the Empowering New Program is to increase the persistence and retention rate of Indigenous students as financial hardships or stress is often one of the reasons that students drop out of university because they don't have the knowledge or resources to say apply for student loans or understand the difference between a scholarship and a bursary and just provide them with those tools. The program is workshop and session based where we bring in community partners or faculties and units on campus that support Indigenous students' success. So some of our partners include obviously elders within the center. We work with Seed Winnipeg that has a dedicated program, Money Matters, that is grounded in Indigenous knowledge for Indigenous students. Some of our programs, while all of our programming incorporates Indigenous teachings and we use Indigenous materials wherever relevant, one of the materials that we use that we give all the students that participate in the program is the Money Matters booklet that was created by Prosper Canada in partnership with AFOA. This booklet uses the land as teachings and animals to convey messages about money management to students. Some of the sessions that we have offered in the fall were a budgeting and savings workshop where students were delivered a presentation about ways that they can save their money and increase their income while in university. We also had an Indigenous financial aid and awards officer come into the center speak to the students about the differences between student loans, scholarships, bursaries, some of the funding options, and then the students were able to move to the computer lab and apply on site with the assistance of the awards officer for the University of Manitoba general bursary. That was quite popular with the students because they felt supported and they had answers to their questions immediately while they were applying. In November, which is financial literacy month, we had an Indigenous dietician come into the center who did a workshop on eating healthy on a budget. Her workshop focused on it was very holistic and it focused on traditional cultural and spiritual aspects of preparing a meal. The meal was all the ingredients were shopped for separately and receipts were shown to the students so they could see how much each recipe actually cost to purchase. Students at the end of the session were provided with a folder that had the Indigenous recipes as well as information on where to purchase traditional foods within Winnipeg as well as ancestral beverages, a booklet on how to make those, and a resource on harvesting as well. Moving into 2019, we've already had an escaping year debt, one dollar at a time session, and heading into tax season, we will be having a tax tips for student session and offering for the first time a tax clinic where students can sign up in advance and come in and have their taxes prepared in the center by trained volunteers that work with community financial services in Winnipeg. So we're quite excited about the programming in year one and really looking forward to how we move forward to year two. Measuring the success of the program I think is very individualistic because success is defined differently for every student. As a program coordinator, one of the biggest measurements of success that I see in the program is having a student take the knowledge that they've learned in some of the sessions and workshops and then apply it outside to their everyday life. So a measurement of success in regards to that would be chatting with a student who has now told me that, you know what, I don't go to Tim's every day, I don't go twice a day, I now make my coffee at home and I've saved, you know, $15 to $20 a week. So their income has been increased. Another example student related would be a student who has never filed taxes before, who comes to the tax clinic, files the taxes and then receives child tax benefits or gets a renter's credit or something from filing their taxes. So that also has created knowledge that there are tax credits and things available to them that will increase their income and then alleviate some of the financial pressures that they may see in their life. But ultimately, I think one of the measurements of success as well is seeing an increase in post-secondary persistence, which I mentioned before, having students stay in school beyond first term so they have the finances and the knowledge to be able to afford their tuition for second term to afford their rent so that they can concentrate on their academics and not worry so much about the financial side of things. I mentioned that the Empowering New Program uses the Managing Your Money booklet. If you're interested in purchasing booklets, you can go to the Prosper Canada website. There's a link that will take you here. You can order copies of it and they also offer downloadable worksheets as well. From my perspective, I think Indigenous education is holistic and rooted in Indigenous values and culture. I would say that it honors Indigenous history and incorporates culturally relevant learning opportunities for Indigenous students into their classrooms and programming and provides them a safe and welcoming space to obtain their education. I think it's also an important part of reconciliation as it provides non-Indigenous people the ability to learn from some of the curriculum and the teachings that are taking place in the classroom. The Empowering New Program is fortunate to have donor support and without the generosity of the donor and having the donor recognize the need for Indigenous specific programming, we wouldn't be able to provide the tools and the resources and supports that we do in regards to financial literacy to the students. In the next 10 years, I would hope that more donors would come forward and provide funding for programming specific to financial literacy. I believe the end result of having funding directed to this would be the increased knowledge around one's own financial wellness and it would support their overall well-being for Indigenous students culturally, spiritually, emotionally, physically. I envision that in the next 10 years, as a result of this funding, we would see a rise in post-secondary enrollment of Indigenous students, as well as their persistence, and then in the end, increased graduation rates.