| Phase: |
Theme |
| Theme: | Theme 4 - Enhancing outcomes for INDIGENOUS YOUTH (THEME4) |
| Status: | Active |
| Start Date: | 2021-02-01 |
| End Date: | 2024-12-31 |
| Principal Investigator |
| Puddu, Cynthia |
Project Overview
This project will explore the impact of an Indigenous-led housing program on Indigenous youth. The research seeks to understand how the program can reduce homelessness by addressing youth’s overall spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. The project will provide opportunities for youth to reconnect with Elders, ceremony and the land. As well as, create Indigenous housing models applicable across Canada and a collection of narratives documenting the experiences of youth.
Outputs
| Title |
Category |
Date |
Authors |
| What is home? Wisdom from nêhiyawêwinABSTRACT:
Policies mandated by the Canadian government in its ongoing assimilation project have interrupted the transmission of knowledge and traditional family systems by separating Indigenous peoples from our homes, lands, and languages. This work is concerned with decolonizing western concepts of home and family in Canada through an Indigenous lens, validating Indigenous ways of knowing when it comes to home and housing, and therefore challenging the way Indigenous issues are addressed. We will be utilizing the lexicons of nêhiyawêwin (Y-dialect Cree) as a primary source to explore the embedded knowledge within the language. Nêhiyawêwin positions women as integral to strong community and family relations, as positioned by traditional matriarchal systems. Indigenous ideas of family are more expansive and broadly defined compared to western worldviews, supporting the circular transmission of oral culture over several generations. To truly understand Indigenous ideas of home, the reader must consider the fluidity of kinship and adoption, as well as what and where home is. This includes a relationship to the land and a spiritual sense of being. With this in mind, we call for Indigenous authority over policy and programming to address Indigenous social issues in Canada. This would allow for Indigenous paradigms to effectively inform policy and housing initiatives that serve Indigenous populations. MacEwan University | Publication | 2022-12-21 | Cheyenne Greyeyes, Celina Vipond, Cynthia Puddu |
| Engaging Indigenous youth during a global pandemic: Lessons learned from an Indigenous-led community based research project in Edmonton, Alberta Paper presented at Horizons: Crisis and Social Transformation in Community-Engaged Research Conference, Vancouver, BC. MacEwan University, Niginan Housing Ventures | Presentation | 2022-05-21 | Cynthia Puddu, Carola Cunningham |
| Omamoo Wango Gamik - Preventing Indigenous youth houselessness during a global pandemicUnlike most housing programs that focus on a physical structure as the solution to ending houselessness, Indigenous-led programs move away from the settler-colonial definition of houselessness. This presentation discussed the importance of focusing on Indigenous people’s spiritual reconnection to their Indigenous identity which involves a relationship to all living creatures, land, culture, languages, ceremony, family and all our relations as an effective strategy for preventing Indigenous youth houselessness. We also described the challenges of doing community-based research during COVID-19 and the challenges of assisting Indigenous youth in reconnecting with their ancestry, culture, and the land during a pandemic. Niginan Housing Ventures, MacEwan University | Presentation | 2022-11-04 | Carola Cunningham, Cynthia Puddu |
| wâhkôhtowin, wîkiwin and LandBack: Practical ApplicationsEurocentric and Indigenous ways of knowing and being are not the same, yet Eurocentric paradigms inform policy and programming serving Indigenous populations. This is especially apparent considering over 2/3rds of the houseless population in Edmonton are Indigenous, with numbers growing every year (Edmonton Social Planning Council, 2021). The continued history of land dispossession and oppression enacted by colonial governments exacerbates this issue, which fails to be addressed by colonial policy. We discussed the nêhiyaw concepts of wâhkôhtowin and wîkiwin in the context of housing policy and why LandBack provides a practical framework for addressing Indigenous houselessness. MacEwan University | Presentation | 2022-11-03 | Celina Vipond, Cheyenne Greyeyes, Cynthia Puddu |
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