 So Noganoen Student Services, it's a, well we have an office in the college called Apoen. Okay. And it's kind of like, what, sorry, Apoen. Do you want to say what it means? Apoen, Apoen, Apoen. I don't know if but it has their own. But in my language it's Apoen. That would be like a place to sit. Okay. Yeah. So it's really nice because it's like our offices are in here but then it's a wide open space where there's couches and tables and food and access to computers. So students come in and they can just hang out or they can work on their homework. Some of us, like I'm a teacher so I can help with like questions but English if they have them. We have elders who come in so they would offer, like if they wanted spiritual counseling they could meet with an elder but they're also, the elders also teach other things. So Jerry Martin comes in and he'll teach, he's teaching Christmas cards this week, like painting watercolors but the other elders do beating and then we have tutors and stuff. So our job in here is like an Indigenous student navigator and we're kind of like guidance counselors but also kind of like social workers. So they can come for help with like any of their program concerns but we can also help them with anything that's blocking their success like outside of school because you need to be well in all of those areas to succeed sometimes. So if you're having a hard time like with housing or daycare or any of that we'll help the students make sure that if we can't do it ourselves then we're going to make sure that they get to the right person or organization to help them with that. So it's kind of like you guys support them all around in their wellness. All right, so that's within Confederation College so your target group or like the age of your audience that you're, or I guess audience might be the wrong word but the target group that you're supporting it would be college students then? Yeah, exactly. And we have college students from like there's we have a 66 year old college student who comes in here and then we also have you know like the 17 year old. Yeah, there's just a wide range and then we also have like it's a target to First Nation but everybody's welcome to come use our services and like our services and resources like we have lots of international students that come in here too. And then we also there's also lots of tours so we've been dealing with a lot of elementary level and then high school like because like we have there's three of us indigenous student navigators so Alicia has the academic lead and Kristen has the cultural lead and then me I have the recruitment lead. So we're all kind of like doing like if I know so Kristen organized the powwow just a couple weeks ago so just like that like so but in the college we have lots of like groups or teams so I'm supposed to be more involved with the recruitment um meetings and groups yeah okay so you each have your specialties sort of thing that there's just uh one I was just I usually tell because um one day it wasn't even busy it was like this like it wasn't really everyone really doing any programming that day so I was recording I was getting everybody to sign their first and last name and I got about maybe 70 people and that was gone maybe a couple hours during that time too and so we get about maybe 52 100 every single day yeah that's pretty good yeah that's impressive I would say like a degree of success is having those people keep coming back even when they're not students knowing that they can come here for help with those things um and then having it be an open non-judgmental space so that when they're ready to come back to school um we're here to help them get that like reach that goal that's great those are um pretty pretty good signifiers of a successful program I think I would say um so what like you guys might have already spoke to some of these so the next question is what is the aim of the program? Confederation College has um an Indigenous learning outcomes kind of like mandate and so part of the mandate is for Indigenous students to feel represented in this space so um having a space that runs cultural programming and it's like a welcoming and Indigenous space I think is part of that goal okay do you have anything to add? You guys spoke to a lot of the stuff that you that you do already yeah in the program anyways and what you offer and things like that so it's kind of uh you you spoke to a lot of that already too I think and there's lots of workshops like this from the community they come and do informal presentations here like they'll have a slideshow and then whoever's around because they're always busy that's it it's come in and out okay so but then if they see it specifically on our calendar then some of them will come and listen we have like we had one just for Q&A where your legal clinic came and talk about like tenancy rights okay just um what else was there? This one that army, Canadian army presentation was really good too so just uh stuff like that was it's really good for the students so kind of like things to know but what's going on and what they like what other programs are there to help them or what their rights are okay cool um again you kind of spoke to this one please describe some of the different activities in the program that the participants are involved in you guys mentioned a few things already is there anything else that you want to add to that? Oh we did that we've been making mittens so that was really popular with a lot of them so we offered from like for like three four hours during the day but then we also didn't know that they can come in before or after because a lot of them might be in class just a company in their schedule we're just very I don't know flexible to them like we always make sure that they didn't know that I know the thing we have it's like it's a part of Negano in services but it's outside so we have an outdoor learning area with a teepee and a fire pit and a little pavilion so we use the fire pit for an opening fire ceremony and closing fire ceremony but teachers can book the space and so they sometimes they'll book it and then they'll have their classes at the fire um and then Karla is rolling out a new initiative next year so she's going to be teaching more land-based activities so when she goes home over the Christmas break she's going to snare some rabbits and fish and then show everyone how to clean. Alisa a little bit part of it like I wanted to like maybe show pictures of like like preparing and actually setting the snare in the net then I could bring it here and I could at least you know show them part of how to prepare the animal and then how to like we don't really we might try to get a kitchen space but like upstairs somewhere but um like that's that's what we're thinking about that's what we want to do yeah very cool that's cool so you're like bringing you know land-based learning into the college because they're very interested lots of people and they haven't they were never able to practice stuff like but in my area it's still very common yeah yeah where do you where are you from? Muscat down oh yeah okay um do you find other teachers using those spaces or using your space or using that outdoor space? Absolutely yeah like from other programs and stuff quite popular I mean nobody's booking it right now in the winter but yeah a lot of people want to use it cool that's good to know there's there's there's always people here like teachers really want us to go present and they're all in their classrooms too and sometimes like there's been issues where there's like conflict in in the classroom so the teacher will send somebody down to get a smudge kit and like we can't smudge we have to we have to ask permission before we smudge so the fire alarms get turned off but people are welcome to go outside um and smudge eventually there's going to be a smudging room where anytime they can go right now yeah so teachers do utilize the space and they contact us if they want to bring an algorithm to their classrooms to help them putting the word indigenous education in place that all other education is somehow colonial and then within the center then it would be through the colonial lens um looking back to my education as in teachers college then I I like the idea of the two two eyes um learning so looking at education through an indigenous lens but also through um like maybe a scientific lens so that you come at it at both angles and then see it uh definitely but other than that I don't know how to answer that for me I grew up on my trap line tell I had to come up from high school when I was 13 and then I didn't even know English till I was 6th so all those teachings from my family and then and then they were always pushing me to finish school like they supported me going to high school and but I was alone but then then I went to college and I came to university so I always say I did like a full circle and all I learned was what I learned in the beginning was what was very important to me like like in all my education that's all I learned was what I already knew was important does that make sense so the other way around for it to be effective but it would be nice if like one thing that we see a problem with is that from the funders iNAC hasn't given any more money to um first like communities for education so while there are more and more um young people wanting to go to school it's the same amount of money from the very beginning so it would be really nice if there was more money placed in those funds so that education was supported um for everyone and then sometimes to funders have a little bit of like um some funders kind of have like a control over students and and I don't know if it's always a positive way like tracking and it's good to have tracking and and um but it would be nice if funders supported their students so a little bit more in depth um first nations communities actually supported their students a little bit more because sometimes they come here and um there's a lot they're lost and then another thing is too having to move from your community to a place like Thunder Bay like yes we have all these services but sometimes it's a scary place so it would be really nice that it's a whole community could support education in that way making the city safer having more initiatives like so that people aren't afraid or vulnerable living in like like poverty-stricken neighborhoods