In honour of National Indigenous Peoples Day, the Office of Indigenous Relations (OIR), the Waterloo Undergraduate Students Association (WUSA) and the Graduate Students Association (GSA) hosted a gathering to honour First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples on Thursday, June 23, at SLC’s Great Hall from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The event featured an Indigenous art market, Indigenous-themed pastries with strawberry drinks, and performances by Indigenous artists. GSA council speaker, Kaylee Biggart, who was facilitating the information booth shared, “I just love seeing celebrations of indigeneity.” She added, ”It’s important for us to be able to show off and celebrate our culture because of how limited we’ve been able to do that in the past … steps to decolonize spaces and be able to actually have authentic celebrations of our culture.”
Multiple vendors displayed their artwork for sale at the Indigenous art market. Their products ranged from modern Indigenous beadwork and jewelry to dreamcatchers. One of the attendees, UW Student Success Office project manager, Robbyn Hesch shared why she came to the event: “I just love Indigenous art. I have some in my home. I think it’s so beautiful.” She added, “we have to support the initiative on campus, and I just love to see all the work that [UW] is doing towards reconciliation and indigenization.”
One vendor, Paula Johns, shared the story behind her business. She started Makwa Beads to raise money for her custody battle of her grandnephew, born to parents who were experiencing addiction. She took care of him from birth to prevent him from going into foster care. However, the judge still granted his father, who she claims to be “abusive” towards both the child and the mother, custody of the boy. “Makwa Beads was created because I am a single mom, and I had no income,” she shared. “Three years ago, I didn’t know how to do any of this…. I came up with [this business] … to help raise funds for fighting for him in court.”
The performance line-up featured local Indigenous artists, including a drum group, hiphop artist and storyteller Mr. Sauga, an Indigenous hoop dancer, and surf-inspired musician Gladwyn Badger.
Devin Pronovost, an environment, resources and sustainability undergrad student at UW, was part of the event’s Indigenous drum group. He shared, “[Performing as an Indigenous artist is] important because music is medicine. So when we perform, we’re sharing some of that medicine with the people.”
Pronovost also described his experience as a vendor at UW. He mentioned that the school added a 60 dollar vendor insurance fee this year. “[I]f they’re gonna ask us to do insurance, they should be covering it for us instead of making us pay as an Indigenous person,” he complained. “When they promote these free markets, they’re not really free.” He added, “Other than that, the people are great … but it would be nice to see them try to make it more accessible for students with those extra fees.”
Priscila Carrara, a faculty advisor in the faculty of science, who attended the event shared her hopes for these kinds of initiatives: “I would love to see more events like this throughout the year, not only close to Indigenous Day.” She stressed, “It would be really nice to have more happening on campus.”
