 My name is Raul Bitterin-Stevenson. I work at Seed Winnipeg, Inc., and I'm a part of the Money Stories team. It's the program I deliver. So the Money Stories program, what it does is it teaches what it's focused on teaching Indigenous youth, financial literacy. So we teach them what credit is. We teach them what budgeting is, especially for budgeting. We call it gathering information. We talk about influences of why people spend the money the way they do. So influences include family, that's a big one. Values, so what they believe in, what they value personally. The time of the life that they're in, right? So I recently, not recently, over a year ago I moved out. So the way I spend my money as an independent person versus as a dependent person, it's different, right? I got by my own groceries. So things like that, right? So the first few chapters start with yourself, right? You, the individual, the participant, why things might be the way they are, community, stuff like that. And then it gets in more of the financial part with the budgeting, learning what banking is, credit cards. So that's the Money Stories program. So when I'm delivering the program, the Money Stories program to participants, I go in there with the clear minds focused on the chapter I'm delivering today or chapters, depending on their timeframes and the schedule online. And I facilitate the program. So I talk about an agenda. We sometimes do a nice break depending how far in I am, how well I know them, or if I feel like I still need to break some ice with them to engage participation. And I go through each segment. So the way I facilitate is it's pretty clear. I think in my mind, I'll start with definitions every class. So we're done be saying a lot that throughout that chapter. So for an example, in chapter five, Colgate information, we talked about incomes, expenses, liabilities, and financial assets. So I spent a lot of time talking about the differences between a liability and an expense. A lot of people tend to get confused between the two. I remember when I took the program, when I participated in Money Stories prior to being hired at C, I didn't get it at first right away either, right? Liability is something you owe money on, and then expenses is something you spend money on. I didn't get the difference right away. So I spent a lot of time focused on that and that chapter specifically. So it's always definitions. So I know what I'm saying, the words I'm using. So it's not so alien sounding, I guess, or form. And from there, I go into some of the key topics of that chapter. So each chapter has different topics. And I focus on the basics of that topic first. More and more, I gradually get into the bigger stuff. So one of I would use an example, we'll stick with chapter five, since I've talked about expenses and liabilities. So after that, there is an activity called getting information for Dave. So we go through definitions, they know what getting information means, and I explain it to them. So in the activity, there's a chart of random items between incomes, expenses, different liabilities, and different assets. So it's a participant's job to identify which is what put them in appropriate categories. And after that, I go through their answers with them. And then wherever they have questions, I do my best to answer. And if there ever is a question that I can't answer at that point in time, I will tell them that it's a good question. I acknowledge the question. I thank them for participating and asking. And I say to them, I'll get back to them in the next class to try and find out that answer. Because for me, I'm a young man, I'm only 20 years old. And sometimes the participants I deal with are not always you. So they have a lot more life experience than I do in their personal lives, which is my own personal life. So when they get asked personal questions sometimes like that, I don't have that experience. So I don't have an answer for that. It's always far to see a past participant from my program. And they were to say hi to me first, I would then acknowledge them and say hi to them back. Then in relation to the program that I would ask them, how is their financial life going? Are they budgeting? Have they opened up a bank account? And with each standalone, I do, I always bring up the opportunity for two other programs a seat offers. So one of them is saving circle to match savings program with a 301 ratio. And after once they finish my class with me and they get the certificate of graduation, they could sign up for saving circle. So I'll ask them, have they signed up for saving circle? And if so, how are their savings coming along? And just out of personal curiosity, I may or may not ask them, what are they saving for if they feel comfortable in answering them. And another thing that they had the opportunity to do as graduates of my money stories program is there's a junior facilitator physician. It's a summer job opportunity for graduates, for the indigenous youth specifically. And I asked them, are they going to apply for that? And if they want to, they can contact me. I usually carry business cards on me, so I'll give them my information. So that's what I would, that's how I would talk to a participant when they're done, if I to see them as an indigenous youth, and when I'm out there facilitating to other youth. I often think about my coming up. I think about maybe the situations that they are in. Now I don't know the situations that are in money. I just think about the demographic that surrounds the organization I may or may not be at, may be at. So the organization that I'm at, I think about my come up. So when people are, you know, not being the most respectful or the most participative, most active, low energy, I can understand where that may be coming from growing up, you know, when you're hungry, it's hard to concentrate. And when you're talking about financial literacy and you have no money, it's not always the best thing to talk about, right? Like, why do I care about budgeting when I got nothing to budget? Now I get that. I grew up with, you know, not a lot of money myself. So when I think, so as an indigenous person, I keep that in mind. And I don't hold it against them. Well, I try not to hold it against them personally, but I may use myself too. So I can be a little at times immature in my own thoughts, right? But I don't like, I want to lash out at anyone wanting, I won't be like, Hey, yeah, so I started to keep in mind and so on. I'm delivering. That's what I keep in mind. My own personal life that is indigenous use in terms of the culture and education. Working at SEED has really made me think about the culture. Prior to SEED, my views on indigenous culture and education weren't not a priority. Often times I wouldn't really, I'd be hesitant to admit that I was indigenous. Someone would ask me, who am I? I would say indigenous, but I wouldn't say it proudly, really. I would just say it because that's fact, right? I am indigenous. That's who I am. That's what I am. But I wouldn't say like, yeah, I'm an indigenous person, right? I don't even, for a long time, I didn't even know my like, indigenous background. I just knew I was, at the time, I would say native or aboriginal. I'm so, though, learned that when I was younger. Before a while, I didn't realize what a kind of native I was, I guess. I didn't know there was different cultures. You know, I just thought native was, boom, that's it. That's what you are. So in terms of working at SEED with an indigenous culture aspect, my job here, one thing I'm focused a lot on in terms of indigenous education is I am part of writing up the curriculum for the Money Stories program. So it's my job to write the chapters. And one thing I'm struggling with currently is incorporating the culture into the money management, right? So prior, the culture piece was missing, I felt. So when I took Money Stories, the goal of it was to incorporate indigenous culture into it. So I don't remember too much of learning about anything indigenous related when I took the classes, the classes. So my job, I was trying to incorporate different teachings, different things, indigenous related, cultural related into it. And so the more things I'm learning as I'm going along from different websites, elders, I speak to other pillars in the community. I'm learning all these different things about medicine wheels and very picking and just all these different teachings that I didn't know prior. Because when I think about the things I'm learning culture related versus things I learned in school, I didn't learn too much in school in terms of struggle, intergenerational traumas. I didn't know what that meant before I came to see or when I was hired and learning about these things in school. All I remember learning about indigenous related in our history units, it'd be shorter, it'd be about the different kinds of areas. So there's, you know, the west coast, plains, Inuit, Métis, and it'd be like what they lived in, longhouses, TPs, that they were nomadic so they'd move. But it was always kind of safe and protected, I guess, in a way for when we talked about residential schools, they'd be brief, nothing crazy, right? They wouldn't talk too much about it, just a light like, oh, this is what a residence of school is essentially. That's what I remember from school, really. So I'm going to get too much in detail about those harder subjects, right? Colonization, things like that, assimilation, the treaties, intentions of treaties. So those things that were not educated on. And so when I see, you know, when I grew up growing up seeing Main Street, a lot of them, a lot of people on Main Street are homeless, tend to be indigenous, even in my family growing up, a lot of my cousins that would be going in a prison jail, stuff like that. So I had a bad mentality about for a while, uneducated mentality, I guess, saying, why can't they just get a job? Is there a working, they capable, they can walk, right? And more of the things that I've gone through, the more the struggle I can see and how it could break people or knock them down, at least for a while. Things that are hard sometimes. In the next little while, next few years, for sure, I can imagine at seed, personally, here at seed, and seed as an organization, I could see more time spent on some of the harder things. And me, my time here at seed, personally, they asked, I've been talking about some of the harder things. And so I hope in terms of the educational system, there's more times on the consequences of colonization, the problems on reservations, in terms of addictions. Yeah, I can see, in terms of education, that it could be a bit more time on the harder things, because no one wants people don't like that. I don't like always educating people on their ignorance of my culture and the way my peoples have been affected, right? I mean, I'm okay with doing it because I have to right now, right? And I'm learning to, for a time, you know, I was, you know, in a bad mentality. I remember one meeting, when I was first starting out that I had honestly and straight up at said to people, I didn't care about the culture, because it was closed minded. And as I learned more, and when I think about my personal life, and where my pains have come from, and where those people who inflicted said pains may have come from. So the cycle can see why things may have happened and why people act the way they do. So in terms of the future, I can hopefully hearing these harder topics right now could show other people that we need to have these harder talk discussions in the future, so that way, but in a more integrated, smoother way. So it's not so hard hitting all the time. So it's not so emotional, right? I mean, there's a motion there. And there's always going to be much neck because no one likes talking about those things. I personally know I don't like to talk about those things necessary sometimes. So so I do. So in the future, I imagine that those necessary topics will be integrated in a way that doesn't have to be so harsh sounding. I mean, what happened was harsh. It is harsh. But they can learn about those hard things as people are growing, as people are learning. So it's not all at once, right? Right. So say, I mean, like grade 10 or something, and we hit all at once with colonization, genocide, residential school survivors, all these things, right? Like what I learned these things as I'm going throughout my education system. So let's say if I start learning my grade three or something, and I was a young age, but you know, that mentality of open-mindedness for other cultures, other races, not just indigenous, but others, but in Canada focus on indigenous because there's a lot of history between indigenous people and Europeans when they first came. So we learned about those things earlier on in more gradual way. I feel people will be more open-minded in the future. We have a smoother relationship with everyone, right? With among ourselves and Canada citizens. So throughout those processes, if we can integrate it smoother way gradually. And so it's not all at once like I have to learn it or am learning it at this age, or it can be kind of hard to hear at times. Now on the surface, I don't show that emotion though. I feel it. I feel it. So I think that's, I think that's the direction we're going in. And with my curriculum writing out in terms of informing indigenous education with all that culture coming in, it's a good space in my program for indigenous people I feel to learn to come in touch with their culture again with their roots. Because that's what happens with me, right? Prior to coming to see it, I didn't participate in sweat lodges. I didn't make any drums, nothing in culture related. It's very city boy like I guess as some would say. So with the program, this education as it's going along, I feel it's going in a better direction or right direction. I feel I'm doing a part in it too with my curriculum, the way it's writing. I shouldn't say my curriculum. See. See is curriculum. I am an employee.