 My name is Martin Van Waamo. I'm the team leader of the life skills program at the Malahad Nation. And I'm one of the people that started the program four years ago in 2015. 14, excuse me. I'm the director of health and social programs at Malahad Nation. And I work with Martin in helping manage and support him in his life skills program. I think we'll start off by maybe if we could just talk a little bit about what is the life skills program, you know, like what is it, what does it do, who can participate in that program, and maybe what the aim of the program is. The aim of the program, what we started the program is we were asked by the former chief of council of Malahad Nation to create a program that would support members of the nation to live the life they wanted to live, literally. And with the question to help people define where they wanted to go to and walk with people and help them get where they wanted to be, which meant no pushing, no pulling, walk with people and help people navigate into the direction they wanted to go to. With back then the instruction that people were not, were free to go where they wanted to go as long as there was movement. We've been doing that the program since 2014. We started out with five themes. One of them was know where you have come from, know where you are, know where you are going, making your mind strong, quam-quam-squalowen in how to meet them and know who's standing with you to create that program. We started out with the help of an elder from Couch and Tribes, Bill White, and that's how we started the program. Anything I'd need to add there, Paula, you think? The participants of the nation, is that nation ships were built very, very solidly with Martin and the team and one of the things that I think is really special about this program, their typical life-skills programs, is that individualized on what a person wanted to go to school or even still lives, all surround what their participant needs are, not a curriculum, are the same. Everybody's individual needs are able to be mapped. So I have a program for some people that would be that determining if they want to go back for education, for employment, for other people, it would be that they wanted to be able to go to employment right away. And for other people, it was very acceptable if you just wanted to be a better parent or, and I think that the basis of the program very much is, is on the needs of what an individual wants and not what the nation wants only to be trained in this, what's made our program very, very successful. And we're aiming for, when it comes to what groups is it, what's the audience, the target audience, it is residents of the Malat Nation. We used to say members, but it changed into residents of the nation. So everybody living on the reserve for 19 and up, because we never, ever wanted this to cannibalize on school-going youth, although we've had young people in that weren't doing anything. And we'd said we'd rather have them in life skills doing their driver's license or getting their license than for them to not do anything. So sometimes parents actually requested for us to take their kids into life, the life skills program because they wanted their kids to do something and not sit at home because they did not want to go to school. Because each individual that's a part of this program is on their own journey and has their own goals in mind, what is this program's role in that? Is it helping the individuals find the resources and get signed up or how does that work? In general, we have a five-day program. Monday is all about we call it personal planning. So that's what's focused on where do you want to go. And the first question when we ask people where do you want to go, the first answer is almost always I don't know. And maybe the first few times it's always yet getting yet behind that and work towards what is it and getting people to think further ahead and make a life planning. Second day always has either a news or cultural background. What's in the news, what's going on? So we call it, I like to call it critical thinking and culture. What's going on, what do we see, where do we see a solution in the past that actually are applicable to current day challenges? But also the nations in the news, so looking at the news, the newspapers. What's in the news, what's going on outside the reserve to make people critical thinkers but also look back and look at traditional solutions. Wednesday is driver's license because almost everybody needs that driver's license and it is a sneaky way to get people in that wouldn't want to participate in other things of the program to get their license because a lot of people need to. And it's a perfect opportunity to not only build what we call learning confidence, because we've had quite a lot of people that got their L, tried a long time but never succeeded. So it is building learning confidence and actually creating a willingness to read, to write, to do stuff and to actually do a test. So it's building confidence. Thursday is all about upgrading, English upgrading and Friday we have a math upgrading program. So we do have a kind of a base in the program, but in that program we're constantly adjusting. And one, I think one of the, I think Paula, that's one of the strength of the program is that since people make a plan and we communicated in social programs, everybody kind of knows. So Paula and I work together, but people present their personal plan to Paula and to Shana, our manager of social programs. So we constantly are aware of where people want to go and people know we know. So we have a rep around support system around people to get them to move. That's actually, and that's what a lot of people say. I always thought I was going to stick here forever and there was no random moment and people said, you guys kind of made me move. And as soon as people start moving, it's really hard to stop. We've seen people getting their license and it said, okay, now I can do this. So I can't have the excuse of I'm stupid because I'm not because I found out I can. And then we're trying to have people serve that wave of success. So that's what we try to, we call, we like to call learning confidence. Yeah, one of us complete their own personal plans with Martin. And it sometimes takes, you know, it can take a month. It can take two months for someone to actually put together a solid personal plan for themselves. And that personal plan can be either educational goals, personal goals, employment goals. And that's how it's how the program focuses on the individual needs is that the program, their plan is their own. What a big thing for people is coming in to present their plans to me. They've never, they've never needed to necessarily articulate what they want in life, their goals and the steps necessary and the supports they need to be able to achieve their goals. And to present as well, make it very, very comfortable and relaxed. People get very nervous about that, but it's intentional to articulate their plan and their goals and the steps that they need to do with someone other than the instructor. It also makes it real. And it also has an accountability piece for them, but it also increases their support structure. Because not only now do they have the, do they have Martin who's working with them on their plan. They have social programs where if we have resources to support them. And it also gives our department the ability just seeing people going, how are you working on this? What can you do? How can we help you? And so that background service so that there's more than just the instructors. There's actually a team of support around the people who are checking up on them. If they, if they're doing really well, we celebrate with them. If they're, if they've fallen off a little bit, you have three or four people who are encouraging them to get back up. And also it's very empowering and presents their goals, their plans to me after they get over the initial, the initial nervousness because almost everybody is empowering for them and it makes it that much more real for them and that much more attainable. The other thing too that I think that, that I just want to add about the flexibility of the program is someone doesn't have to come five days a week. We do have single mothers who have children at home. We do have people who maybe cannot connect to five days a week. But maybe what they can do is they might start in upgrading English because they're comfortable there. And they may come to that, you know, Thursday morning for a month and then decide, gee, you know, I might now venture into doing my driver's license and then they come two days a week. Oh gee, this is kind of neat. Maybe I'm also going to come on another day. So the flexibility of the program meets the person where they're comfortable and where their need is. And as people gain learning confidence, what happens is that they branch out to then try other parts of the program. And we allow for that. And it's so interesting, Paula, that you mentioned. Sometimes people feel a fall of the bandwagon for a week or two. And it's interesting we've had people and I would, because it's a small reserve, so it's an awesome part of my work is just driving around too. I should actually get my kilometers, no, so driving around like in a small little town. You stop and you chat and what's up and I haven't seen you for a while. Then people are embarrassed. Oh yeah, I let you down. And interestingly enough, since we know their plan, you never let me down, I'm just there. And it's awesome to see people focus on their plan and not feel embarrassed to other people or because we're not pushing people to embarrass them to say, you know what, you let yourself down or whatever. Because usually there's a lot of negative self-talk already. But when we say, you know what, I know your plan. I'm there and people walk back in and say, okay, here I am. And they're just on their journey. And we're trying to make people feel like they didn't fall off. You know what, their journey slowed down. And we've seen a lot of people come back and take steps again. With the program here and the individuals, how would you say that you could maybe sort of evaluate that their success in the program? And along with that, maybe if you could elaborate on some of the challenges that you've come across over the years. One of the awesome things of creating a personal plan with a long-term vision, a strength, a short strength analysis, say these are my strength that I bring, even cultural teachings that people bring to the table that will help them. And setting short-term or long-term goals, personal long-term goals, short-term goals, and just checking off on them. Sometimes we just have a small little checklist. When people start with that, they feel horrible because it feels like school. And we said, this is not for me. This is for yourself to see that you're actually climbing the stairs instead of feeling that you never got anywhere. We've had people who said, oh, I'm not there yet. And then we look back and they were started signing off on their own achievements and said, I'm actually already halfway. But I forgot because I'm not there yet and it helps. So a lot of the things are, are they actually moving? Oh, come on. Are they achieving their goals, the set goals? It helps us to keep some check on where people are going and people themselves too. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought there. You asked, so how do you measure that? So movement, seeing movement, and literally helping people see their own movement. Because what we see a lot is that people, when they haven't achieved their end goal, it's really challenging for a lot of people to acknowledge their own steps, the small steps, their movement, and seeing it and looking back and saying, hey, I climbed higher already than I ever thought. And that's part of that. That's how we measure. We've seen people achieve, especially in the driver's license, people got their L. Literally people that said that thought they would never, ever get it because they had so much test anxiety, reading anxiety, everything. We've had people who said, I never read the book, the ICBC book, but I really like how we talk about stuff. Repeat, repeat, repeat, and she said, she said it's weird because we did it the old way because elders would repeat, repeat, repeat, and you get annoyed and you did exactly the same. So what we're trying to do is almost culturally appropriate, we call it cultural inquiry, finding old ways for new situations. And interestingly enough, a lot of people like that and see it. We refer to teachings, but we're trying to apply them, and I'm not indigenous, but we sit down with quite a lot of elders and we've seen it. And we have elders in the background of me now and then who say, I don't want to be in front, but I want to be there. And they acknowledge situations and they add their stories to it in the program. And it makes people feel confident. You can see it. We've seen people change from wanting to just have a routine. I want to try to be here every day. That was one of the goals, one of the members head. And she has three kids now. So she had two of her three kids while she was in the program, but she was back in the program a week after she had her kids because she said, I need to get back in the routine. I know routine helps me. Sometimes she's only in for an hour and a half with a three hour program, but it's part of her plan to get that routine and get out. And yeah, is there anything else we were measuring? How do we know people are successful, Paula, except for reaching their own goals and taking the steps? You know, being able to go back, training program or training program in a certain amount of time. And other people's goals can be just like Martin said, to be able to establish a routine, which means I'm up and I'm at the center at nine o'clock in the morning, you know, three or five days a week. And if they could do that, that success. Because part of the challenges that we see is very much, you know, in the beginning is even to establish a routine when you're up in the morning early, you know, you're at the center at nine o'clock. Big goal for some people because for years, perhaps they haven't had a routine where they have to be somewhere in the morning. It's also routine that many of our participants have young children and that's a challenge for them. And so on occasion, when you come to our life skills program, sometimes you see all the children around too. It makes it even that much more challenging, but it's how we can support members, you know, even with small children and they will come. So we do have, you know, people who challenge them that it's a huge success that for a month someone can come every day to the program and not as a success for them because it's a really difficult thing for some of our members to be able to do. So, you know, people with single parents and we have single parents or people who have young children that can be challenging. The other thing that's very, very challenging is that many people feel quite uncomfortable to actually go into any kind of learning environment because their past history has not been positive and has in fact been very negative. So being able to have somebody who is anxious to come into the program, who is looking forward to coming in and then he starts to see that moving forward, setting goals, learning new things is positive. That's a very huge success for many people. It's just switching that ring. And a lot of people also have little confidence. In their own abilities. Years and years and years it was safer to actually not even to try than to try because they think they're going to fail. So many times even a very huge success and it may take somebody, three months, six months to be able to actually gain some learning confidence that, you know what, I'm going to try this and I can be successful on it. And that is a huge step that we see as success that people are actually attempting to after years of negative self-talk and saying that they can't do anything or achieve anything to be going, you know what, I'm going to try to do this and if I fail it's okay because I can try again. Yes. And we, I always, can I add to that that when people said, oh I did and I failed and one of the things we're trying, no you tried and you're not there yet, you'll try again. And it's so interesting people or stupid little sentences, I can do this yet. And people hate us for it or hate me for it, for saying it but interestingly enough, eventually it's people become massive of their own thought process and they're starting to understand how that works. And the one of the successes I've seen too is that people start to own up, own the program. Not so long ago we made the big mistake to kind of change ours because somebody asked to and we had quite a lot of backlash from people saying you can't just do that. And first response could be yes we can and then interestingly enough it was so awesome because people were just outraged and said you cannot change our program, it's not your program. And it was so, it was so cool because in a way it was a, sorry for saying it, it was a shit story and we got over us. But we realized it's ownership and that's exactly what we want, people to feel ownership for this. And interestingly enough people that actually did that said okay we're okay but we want you to discuss it with us and critical thinking and feeling the confidence to speak out and speak up is part of that. Having your voice heard is definitely part of that and we've seen more and more people actually walk into the band office, ask for help, ask for explanation and critical thinking and the confidence to do that. It's pretty cool, it's always cool to talk about it. I immediately have people in my head and one of the things asking for help maybe that is the most, one of the things we've seen a lot. Two perfect examples where we have one participant, she has six kids, he's 24 with six kids and her kids go to school and they have an awesome track record but her kids are starting to push her to school too. Her youngest come to the program too and she went through a hard time a few months ago and her kids are starting to push her back, saying mom because she wants to be a role model and unfortunately whenever she doesn't make it she's really tough on herself. Where her kids said mom did you go to school today and because she tells them to go and she wants to role model. The part of that I think is an important part of the program too. We've seen a lot of especially moms who want to role model a learning attitude to their kids because they want them to go to school but they're challenged, it's challenging for them to show. So for them part of going to the program and showing the kids you need to go because I go too. And role modeling that is a really important part of what we see too. Successes. Lots of successes, wonderful. Let's talk about what is Indigenous education to you from your perspective and maybe we could talk a little bit about the importance of the life skills training and the building of professional development for our Indigenous peoples for the nation there. That's a loaded question, Crystal. And I think people struggle with what is Indigenous education because it's so varied dependent on the community and the nation that you work with and the individuals that you work with. And for Malahat it's the Malahat way and we speak specifically often in all of our program life skills and it's really the Malahat way. And Indigenous education, when we talk about the Malahat way, is that it's relevant to Malahat members, that Malahat history is incorporated into all of our programming. It's not the community itself and the knowledge that they hold is what is to share and the strengths culture. So one of the things that we try and do in our program and specifically life skills is that our participants are the teachers and they share the stories and they share excellent job on cultural inquiry. So many people will say, okay, well how do you do performance management, task orientation? And that's an orientation towards the words that we use as professionals and our participants go, we have no idea. And Martin will break it down and say, okay, what happens when you have to put together happens when you need to organize the canoe journey. And people automatically then start talking about what you have to do and we can translate that. But that really is performance management. That really is task management and being able to understand that the gifts and the learning and the skills in our indigenous ways translate in just a different word. People really understand already. They've done this, it's just the wording is different. But tasks are the same. Culture, everything that we do. So for example, when Martin's doing driver's license training, we are using tools and teaching methods based on historical and cultural context. It means doing, showing, practicing. People don't just read books and do quizzes. People thinking models for all of our personal planning, it all ties back to cultural ways of knowing and historical content sharing they're into success in the modern world. We use a variety of historical contexts from our elders in our community to share those teachings. But also part of critical thinking is also bringing in and part of what Martin does so well is what are other nations doing as well? Where are they finding their strengths and are there things that Malahakas of similar culture? I think we get into trouble when we try and think that indigenous education is very generalized and we should teach everybody in one model of cultural practice because it's very, very individualized based on the community and many times based on the family traditional beliefs. And you need to leave room for people because you can close people off if you say this is culturally appropriate because maybe it is for one family or for one area but it may not be for another one. So it's very much inclusive and it's also very much on what do you do in your families and not, this is what Coast Salish tradition is. It's here's what some Coast Salish do, what do you do, what's different, what's the same, how can we utilize that? Of course we always have elders who share their traditional knowledge and we've had them from other areas as well as well as elders participate from our own nation in the program who work alongside Martinch, not, this is how things are done. So I think it's a model that needs to be very evolving. I think that indigenous education has to be around what individuals feel. It has to be not generalized and it has to be very much accepted that there are different types cultural backgrounds for each family so that alone each community and you need to leave room for that because you can exclude people if you say that it is only one way because all of our indigenous teachings vary from family to family and it's just leaving room to make sure that you respect and honor all of those beliefs and all of those strengths. It's very much getting away from traditional teaching methods where teachers or instructors stand in front of a classroom and talk and people read and there's tests. It's very experiential in all of our program where people practice do say, practice do say it's hands-on information relevant and it's always tied it back to traditional cultural practices and how in today's modern world lessons from that and we can excel. I really like Paula how you said because time and time again I realized when I started this program when I became the instructor I said no three times to the chief back then and eventually I said okay why would you ask me and one of his reasons was you're an immigrant you probably understand our people way more when they go off reserve because they feel immigrants in their own country had me heard say about the challenges and the other thing is sometimes I feel that the group is teaching me more and maybe that's a benefit for me not being fairly new to the country and to indigenous culture because everything I needed to learn so part of it was just being very curious and inviting people to speak what I've seen is that a lot of people didn't want to talk about culture and what the interesting things we've seen in in the group was actually an elder telling people yes you can tell him about a big house yes you can tell what happened you cannot tell sing your song you may not want to share your names maybe but you can tell what a big house is what and just saying it's sacred he said it's just insecurity so part of what he and that was so awesome was was help so when you talk about indigenous education what he did was giving participants the confidence to actually teach me so it was actually the other way around so when indigenous education I would love to have the teaching white people sorry Juanita that about culture and feeling the confidence to do that in a respectful way and making me because I always said you know what I'm a child you need to teach me but you cannot ask me blame me that I'm disrespectful to your culture if you haven't taught me how to behave first it's like a child teach them how it's done say it again and they can say now you need to stick to the rules and interestingly enough we see that now I've been teased so many times it was so much fun I've been teased Shawna and Paula have laughed at me said really even after years I would say something and they said really you still don't get it and I and being open to that to me as an instructor is part of it so I feel blessed by being totally ignorant but I am curious I am curious of nature so and people hate me for it every now and then or when I push them just a little bit one of our participants Lisa posted on Facebook is in Marta Favamo I hate you for pushing me out of my comfort zone and Marta Favamo I love you for doing it because now I have my license so that's what we so there's a lot of fun there's a lot of joking I would push people out of the comfort zone and people find that they'll survive out of their comfort zone and that's what because comfort zones are at this very moment for a lot of people not very effective and and it's really cool to see how people feel the confidence to step out so Indigenous education to me I would love that it would also be Indigenous people teaching non-Indigenous people how to be respectful uh because else people might in their ignorance might do stupid things that are felt like very disrespectful but not meant that way not intentional but um I would love for that to happen too so that's what we're trying at this very moment and that's what happening in the in the nation I think hey thanks well thank you thank you very much for sharing all those words um that's wow before we wrap up I just was wondering um if you could maybe share what um what your vision um for um maybe for your program and moving forward over the next uh five to ten years what would you like to see how would you like to see it grow or would you visuals in our community will uh be successful to that um after they graduate from school that they will have goals their their dreams for themselves and have the confidence through all of our programs see that we're going to expand to a leadership leadership so that we can start working with our people on management you know so that they can be our future leaders and our goal oftentimes at the nation is to work ourselves out of jobs so ideally I would like to see that every every nation member is to confident enough to be able to go after their goals go after their dreams have the support of the nation to do that and lead very successful personal and career and uh private life so that's my goal I I agree to call uh to I went out not because I'm driving three days a week I'm driving 150k to go to Mill Bay so my loyalty is with the nation but I would love for people to feel the confidence to not need me anymore I want to be their friend I don't want to be their and supporter and I will always uh I always I will support but I would love for people to um be independent at one of my as a as an instructor or a facilitator I always shy I one of my my my my main values is independence and that's part of what we're trying to do creating belonging ability and autonomy and I do believe my dream is that people will be feel the confidence to be teaching whatever we're doing and and maybe call us every now and then can you do the this and this part and I would love to do that but I would love for nation members to do 60 percent of it and then call me for a specific thing we don't need you for the rest we just need you for this part because that's what you're good at and not because whatever as a leadership developer because that's my background and and I would love that and and and we're seeing that people come and say I need to have my first aid upgraded before we did we did the program we offered it and people walked in and then people found out oh mine wasn't actually was still was still good um what I would love what I like is that people walk up to us now one of our my participants also longer said I don't know enough about residential school our elders don't really want to talk about it because it's too painful can we go to Penelope and visit the residential school I said isn't that too painful for you she said no I wasn't there I've seen a lot of hurt but I'm finding that I don't have enough information to teach my kids so she's taking the initiative and I don't know how to do it because that's could be very traumatic but three four people say yeah I want to visit a residential school I want to see I want to feel I want to know what it is and it's so interesting because first I almost very paternalistic said oh that's very traumatic she said that's not up to you to decide I want to see what happened there I want to learn about it so interestingly enough it's it's starting to shift people are starting to feel that responsibility the ownership and telling me what they want and that's my dream independence and getting people reaching their goals because we said about 10 year goals people driver tell us we're crazy that we're setting 10 year goals but I would love for for people to just reach their goals wonderful thank you okay well was there any final thoughts or ideas that you'd want to share before we wrap up Paula you mentioned cultural inquiry that's one of the things if I can just mention one thing while we were working in the beginning of the program Bill White and I did something and afterwards we were looking at each other and said whoa that was a good session and it was all about Paula mentioned something about project management and people you could see people kind of fade out words oh that's native words we don't want to hear about it and they kind of and and we had a session that session where Bill asked me to explain what in your opinion is project management and I explained in in almost a definition and then he translated in how do you think our people from Cowichan would go to the Fraser River go fishing and do you think they just threw everything in their canoes to start a peddling no they prepared for it for half a year and we would look at who would be the project managers and people say oh the elders and they said no no no he said no no those were the time managers they said when it was time to go but the chiefs were the project management and the family heads were the problem they made sure that the nets were ready they made sure that the dipping nets were ready they made sure that the canoes were ready and and so we translated the project and it was so cool because two months later we had one participant who started talking about oh yeah it's project management and planning and and she used the wording that she didn't want to use before because they felt that that were not hers she owned them and she immediately she not only understand understood exactly what it was but she used them in her daily work and interestingly enough that is what we're trying we and Bill and I look back and I said what the heck happened it worked and we called it because it looked like a appreciative inquiry we called it a cultural inquiry looking back at your own culture and practices and finding solutions to daily to current day challenges and and it that worked really really well so that's what we're trying to do constantly so that's the and we kind of called it cultural inquiry that's why Paula used it and yes that was uh that was a good one anything else Paula that you wanted to add oh we're just grateful for the opportunity yes to talk about our program because I think that life skills doesn't do kind of life skills doesn't do it justice everybody likes the kind of life skills it's about it's about empowerment it's about independence autonomy belonging yes and personal leadership yes and personal leadership