 Tell me about your program. What is it called? Okay, well I own Neched Up Games and it's originally was intended to be an indigenous board game, card game and app company. That's still in the works but I've pulled back from that. So what I do right now is I operate it kind of as a social enterprise. We go into learning spaces and give workshops. We have a line of workshops that we do that where we use our games as teaching teaching around maybe decolonization, maybe around learning about history, maybe learning around empowering yourself as indigenous people and believing and knowing that your culture should be a source of your empowerment. So those those kinds of workshops and it can be geared for whatever I guess purpose the group has and then in the future like this fall we're launching the Neched Up subscription pack and they're for teachers. With Saskatchewan education, public education, private, we're asking teachers to teach about treaty now, reconciliation and all these other topics where they have graduated from universities where they only had one class that one indigenous studies class to graduate. So now there's this education gap within our general education teachers. Unless you're from ITEP, FNUC, unless you've been privileged to go to those institutions, you have an education gap and learning about indigenous topic. So the Neched Up subscription pack comes in and supports teachers for a fee. They get trained on how to use the games. They get a list of resources for their learning purposes and then they also get a box of the Neched Up games cards with the expansion pack. So those are the two main programs that I run right now. Kind of unofficially I do public speaking, I guess, around these kinds of topics around finding belonging, finding your sense of self, leadership, even talking about the hard things like what needs to get done to have this one group specifically with their mission goal and visions to bring them into becoming reconciled or following the TRC. So it's a bit of a middle ground with this company Neched Up games. We provide education for the gaps to get people where we need to get to get equal understanding about who First Nations, anyway ITP people are. Where age groups are a target audience? Well, my target audience is I have a few different sectors, one of them being of course like high school. So over the age of 12, I find that some of the games are geared for more young people with more knowledge about treaty reconciliation, history, etc. etc. But also another target market are those who are open to learning about reconciliation. I don't want to force myself into organizations where they don't really care. So I'm going into organizations where they want to learn on what they need to do to be better allies or better friends or better Canadians. So I'd say my target markets are high school, university students as well as learning adults and that could be taken however you want to be. And the aim of the program, teaching what subject, is it like a healing journey or is it land-based? It's hard to say what the subjects are. With the games, we bring a lot of trivia, trivia into it. So there's a lot of like historical documents that are included in there like treaties, territories. It also incorporates language. So you have a few different words that are very I suppose common among Cree, Soto, Dene languages here in Saskatchewan that are introduced in the games. There's also stigma. Now we include stigma labels as part of each of our workshops. Like I promote the idea that we do get a quote, a mile in our moccasins. So throughout the games, there are cards that you pull sometimes called stigma labels and essentially they're like stickers that you have to stick to yourself. Some of them say wagon burners, some of them say squaw, some of them say under some of the new ones savage or those kinds of things. And we've had a lot of different dynamics around that. It's really interesting. So we're actually going to go into a research grant with U of S to study a bit more about the effects of stigmatization and health and healing because I've noticed some different this is an aside. I've noticed a different type of dynamic, whereas the kids in the hood, when they get stigma labeled, they take the it empowers them. They think it's funny. They take back those terms and they reclaim it and they find this that it's they make fun of it. And so it kind of helps them empower them by the way they take in those ugly stigma things and become reason above it. And then the other dynamic that I'm noticing is that we'll just say Canadians, non First Nations Canadians, non non-indigenous Canadians, when they have those cards, either they'll one not know what the stigma label is. So it's also a learning opportunity for them to know that they're those are harsh labels and you can't say that and or they're finally realizing what those labels mean when they get stuck on them. And they have a better understanding of the stigma labels and how harsh they are so that they could be a way to make change in that and their social circles, family circles, whatever. So that's a big piece. Stig talking about stigma labels and shedding those labels. And I feel like that's a step to healing and wellness talking about identity and stigmatization. And lateral violence is another thing that gets talked about with those stigma labels because not not every will say we stigmatize ourselves quote unquote you know things like oh she's too good that's another stigma label that's a latterly violent term. So also these Canadians also learn about what lateral violence means so that they get a better understanding and healing too about what that looks like. And other subjects can't say specifically math or specifically science. Language is a big piece of the workshops as well throughout the workshops. I asked the participants to read the cards out loud so the literacy being able to read is a important part of that as well. And I think that's it's from the top of my head. Okay cool. What is the program intended to do? Like what are the learning objectives? Okay it depends on the group. I guess we can talk a bit about the vision of the Neat Stuff games. Two parts to that vision is one where I want to overcome racism. I want to overcome misunderstanding. There's so much misunderstanding from the education gaps of our teachers from decades of educating here in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately Saskatchewan people and Canadians aren't educated enough to have some of their opinions I'd say that much. And so what I want to do is bridge this knowledge gap with Canadians and First Nations people and have them understand why history, identity, empowerment, sense of belonging, I want them to understand those things. Even pulling way farther than that I have been primarily doing my education and my career in renewable resource management, land management, protecting the land. And so I find that racism and misinformation is one of the leading causes of pollution. It's super, it takes a lot of explanation for me to connect the dots, but that's from my whole years of studying. Racism is a big proponent of those kinds of power dynamics over the land. So what I've done was taken the skills and abilities and game gamingness. I don't know what the word would be game nerdiness and combine those to create tools that are fun and funny but also healing and learning. And so what I want to do is just create a greater sense of belonging because we know where we've come from as our individual nations. We know what our relationship has been to each other and to the land. And then eventually the vision is that we don't meet beached up games anymore. Trying to figure out where the question started here. The learning objectives. The learning objectives. I guess it's hard to define for me because it's very broad. Well, we'll say for non-Indigenous Canadians, I guess some of the learning objectives is to learn about history and why that's important in today's context because history is really important. It's also to teach about culture in a way that is a good way, the good way. It's not necessarily elders' teachings, but not everyone has access to elders. So it's giving them that kind of learning in the spaces, meeting them where they're at. I'll say that. And also the board game that I'm going to be releasing, it talks a lot about the four stages, different four, four different stages of life. And throughout those games, you have choices to make. So if you're going to go to school or if you're going to go to work, beyond that, you have to, if your status or non-status first nations, do you get taxed or not taxed? And then it involves this idea that you may or may not get education funding if your status. So you have to roll the dice and take the chance because not everybody gets funding, right? So they're introduced to those dynamics about Indigenous, we'll say complexity, of Indigenous people. And then beyond that, you have to choose if you're going to live on and off reserve and what they both have different kinds of outcomes because with working on reserve, you don't, living on reserve, you don't have to pay the rent sometimes, depends on which community, but also you don't earn that quote equity with your mortgage, where if you work off reserve, you have to keep continuously pay for it. And so like this game brings out all those different complexities of first nations, taxation on reserve, off reserve, elderhood, going to school, parenting as a single parent, parenting in a two-parent household, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a way of introducing who we are and how complex we are within games. Yeah, that's really interesting. When's that board game coming out? I'm going to say a year and a half. It's quite expensive and I have to source from out of Canada. It's going to take a while to get there. I was just graduating June and student loan debt, so it's going to take a little bit to get there, but it's going to get there. Nice. Is this program an example of excellence in Indigenous education? I don't know. I would hope so. I'll say yes. Yeah, it's kind of like a weird question to ask. Yeah, I think it's unique, I guess, as a source of excellence in the way that it's very unique that I have, I created this because there was nothing out there like this for me when I first started creating Indigenous games. And still, seven years after developing my first game, there's still really nothing out there that is like this. I mean, the way I think about it is we've had like hundreds, okay, we'll say 30 years of First Nations education and First Nations being educated on a community that's run by our own people, and even Canadians that we're still using the same education models, which still produces the same kind of misinformation, discrimination, racism, etc. So I find this is a source of uniqueness or excellence in the way that it teaches, in a way that nobody else has done before. And then it's fun and it's a way of meeting young people in a way that engages them and the way they learn. So in that sense it is. And also the model that I've done to collect these knowledges is either through life, life learning, coming back into my culture. That sense of belonging is something that I needed after I left my home. And I found it within the literature, within the history learning. And so that sense of belonging empowered me. So the way I've collected it is through learning through my own learnings, going through university, so researching as well. And also most importantly, asking the elders that learning journey was part of it, but only part of it can get to be shared. So those parts have gone into the game. So going through protocol to these elders and asking them for what can and cannot be shared is a really integral part of how this organization is running. How do you measure the success of your program? Do you notice like a difference or change in participants at the end of the program? Is enrollment high? The way they work is that usually they don't have me come more than once. One per group to do that. It's hopefully a starting point to get them to learn more, keep engaging with that kind of knowledge, keep believing in that their knowledge is valuable. So but the way I think it's successful is that other groups they have word of mouth brought in other groups to come do these workshops or have me to go do them. So that word of mouth is as an indicator for me. Another one would be just seeing the young people. My most proudest is when I'm working with kids from the hood or kids from First Nations communities. They have a lack of resources and so they're like me or they figure out a way to do something even though they don't have exactly everything that they need you know. So but the way I see it successful in them is that those that piece when I spoke about how those stigma labels have empowered them. I've seen an attitude change right from like the beginning of the three-hour session to the end of it where they're quiet and introverted and then the humor of it brings people like breaks the ice. The knowledge piece of it breaks the ice. The knowledge sharing breaks the ice because these young people I don't know if they've had people believe in them. So when you ask them what do they think it's like their attitude they're they glow when they when they get to share their knowledge and share their teachings and share the way they've been brought up. So again we're going to be doing a research around how that looks like what to what degree are they empowered quote unquote. And also just from the questionnaires I suppose I asked the question at the end of it would you or would you not attend another session? I'd say like 19 times out of 20 they would say yes they would do it again. The one time out of 20 is usually a young person who's saying no because I could do this better and so I go and talk to them and I'm like do it yeah here's what you need to do to make a game and then when you do that keep playing it keep playing play. Since I want more young people to be able to think about entrepreneurship in a different way about themselves in a different way so that they know that they can do it I mean if I can do it they can do it too and they just need to have a game that's practiced that works that mechanics work and then I told them to come back to me with that and let's build something so that you can have your own company or you can be part of mine I don't know so I want young people to think of themselves differently and do things differently so I take that as a success measure as well it's because even though you know they recognize that they have the skill and ability in themselves to make something as good or even better so even though it's like might seem like a negative it to me it's not because this person thinks it knows that they can do better and I want them to. Are you willing to share any supporting documentation about the program with with the NCCIE? In your opinion what is indigenous education? It can mean a lot of things I think indigenous education. Some additional probes are how would you define the word indigenous is the term indigenous one that you would normally use? I use indigenous because I feel like it's more most respectful over like aboriginal people use aboriginal and I feel indigenous is more true to what I feel we are I suppose so indigenous to me are First Nations, Métis and Inuit people people who are born from this land and who I don't want to say stay here but people who are born from this land will say are considered indigenous and I use it quite a lot to describe I guess all the different nations here in Canada because it's the most encompassing to me and I suppose my definition of indigenous education could be in multiple things one of them is teaching in our traditional way of teaching so a lot of I feel like it's hands-on not a lot of like lecturing type learnings educating hands-on intergenerational interdisciplinary that type of indigenous education can go almost anywhere. Another way that we taught is also on the land so land-based education or talking about land and as a as a spirit or an identity is alive I suppose is another way I see indigenous education and another way and like the more like Western education type model I feel indigenous education could also mean like the indigenous 107 108 you know those courses that teach you about history different aspects about indigenous topics so I find indigenous education to be like a super broad could be a really broad term and have multiple focuses on those so what is your vision for the future of indigenous education in the community and in Canada. I would like to see our First Nations maybe in any way communities I like the model right now or where we have our own control of our education system and that sometimes gives it that negative rap like you're not quote unquote good enough to get into university but I would like to see that standard be raised I suppose but that means a lot of different things indigenous education on the community not only means like advancing our education to be a bit more at par of Canadian education systems it also means incorporating a holistic view of what learning is so spirituality is important physical health is really important emotional and health you know all those four things are really incorporated into our education system and not only that we need some sort of more emotional supports so indigenous education also means emotional authenticity to me being able to heal as part of that education because without healing I find that it's going to be a challenge for us in life because those well it's a bit of a tangent but without healing I wouldn't be where I'm at right now I've had such significant challenges in my 20s because I refuse to look at my own mental state and my own emotional health and my own past where if things have traumatized me and impacted me and so those learnings about where I've come from learnings about history and why residential school has a huge impact on me and also talking to social workers and counselors those are all part of my indigenous healing to get me from this hurt person who was really intelligent but but moving me to who I am now someone who is this feels more whole so indigenous education to me is more than just getting those education standards to be the same or even better as Canadian schools it's also incorporating healing and emotional well-being and balance in those schools and also and I guess the Canada as a whole bringing them into those holistic learnings too like everyone needs healing I think it's some people would be really shook if their identity was challenged as a patriotic Canadians they just don't know about what has happened what their ancestors have done to us not saying or placing blame on you or just saying that you're benefiting from those systems that have oppressed us and and and so when they realize that it's going to be hurtful for them too so bringing those holistic teachings into their education system because I don't think indigenous ways of punishing throw people away was to heal and bring them back in so that's an important key piece for Canadians to to have in their education system more mental health more mentally physical I think we all can use a little bit more balance in our in our education system can you think of any types of information that if you had now it would help to achieve your vision let's say I took entrepreneurship more seriously about three years ago and from this journey to now I would really encourage myself to look more at the weak points within our education system and that and to me it took three years to get to this realization that there's an education gap with our general educated teachers so that's where they need help and that that's not that they don't know how to change is that they don't know where to go and so I find it's going to be such a great opportunity for them and for each of games to I guess reciprocate so that would have been nice to know is knowing that there are gaps that could be more easily filled rather than me trying to go and sell games to the broader community so just filling the gaps because for me that would have helped me with my I guess going through school at that time stress level making sure I'm not so busy and it would have been more effective to go into that route rather than trying to sell products that would have been good to know because not because that the selling products isn't important but I think that I want to ensure that I'm using my time effectively and that I'm going to where there's the most need or where there's the most yeah the most need so I think I would have if I had known that that there was that that big gap then I would have went there first also I would have told myself that not everybody is is where we are and to be patient and this is a lot of different nations too but not everyone believes in you when you tell them their vision and so if I had believed in some of those people who had told me well why would anyone want to buy a game that's nature then I would have probably if I were to listen I would have been doing this so I would have yeah I would have definitely told myself just don't listen to that keep true to your mission aside from the programs in which you are all are personally involved what information do you have on other indigenous educational programs in Canada well I know of a few consultants I suppose and not a lot I'll open this by saying I don't know a whole what the whole landscape looks like because we're not in a network there's the this organization the center will really help in connecting those sources of information and really help people who need our sort our information our knowledge to make changes but having said that I've only been able to access consultants within the Little Pine North Battleford Saskatoon areas and there is not a lot there's a lot of elders who go to different school divisions who one of them is Elder Judy Baron I come to her a lot for information she lives in Sweetgrass First Nation and she talks a lot about worldview and worldview and then she can stem off the different stories that she knows in that way but she feels that the understanding worldview will give you a basis to understanding who we are well she's crazy or a creeper that's creepy