The mentoring program “su’luqw’a” of the Neighborhood Cousins Aboriginal of Vancouver Island College will have fun its tenth anniversary in September 2021. In honor of this necessary milestone, we share tales from folks carefully associated to this system every month main as much as the anniversary. Keep tuned to have fun this necessary milestone in February 2022 – once we hope to get collectively in individual.
The ‘su’luqw’a’ Neighborhood Cousins program builds mentors’ potential to develop management and employment abilities via placement and mentoring actions. College students enhance their abilities in self-awareness, communication, management, self-care, and exploration of non-public values, with an emphasis on “storytelling” as a path to self-empowerment via contact with others.
Ever since Ivy Richardson graduated from VIU with a Bachelor of Arts, Double Minor in Xwulmuxw / Indigenous Research and Bodily Schooling in 2019, Ivy Richardson has been busy constructing her personal enterprise, Purple Woman Rising, in addition to a aggressive boxing crew known as Group 700 and co-founder of a ladies’s empowerment group – Matriarch Resistance. Ivy, Gusgimukw and Nuxalk Nation on her mom’s facet and Irish, Scottish and English on her father’s facet, tells us extra about her enterprise and what it means to reside like a ceremony each day.
What made you select VIU to your coaching?
My mom had moved us from Port Hardy to Nanaimo and he or she and my older sister have been visiting VIU so I made a decision to go there too.
How did you get into Neighborhood Cousins?
Somebody got here into my classroom and described this system and that piqued my curiosity. I feel we have been the second group to be skilled.
How has it formed you as a neighborhood cousin?
It was very optimistic. I am unsure if it formed me as an individual, nevertheless it did give me some alternatives and instruments to construct myself up as an individual, as an advocate, and as a member of the neighborhood. The unfavourable was my feeling of being neglected. I had the sensation that I wasn’t all the time invited to the desk. The neighborhood cousins have been a small a part of it. There have been many choices and I might present what I may.
Are there another highlights out of your time at VIU you could share?
I’ve many fond reminiscences of the assembly level. College was powerful from an educational standpoint, however I used to be decided to make it and I am glad I made it.
How did the thought of founding Purple Woman Rising, your boxing, yoga and wellness consultancy, come about?
I needed everybody to be invited to the desk. I needed to create one thing that was accessible and inclusive. I had the thought of an organization that mixes motion and neighborhood for a very long time and it simply builds on that and that is what I created.
Are you able to inform me one thing about your motto in your web site – Stay like a ceremony each day?
It is for me personally as I used to be searching for tradition and ceremonies. I grew up an city indigenous individual feeling separate from my household. I went to my mom and requested her, “Why did not you elevate us culturally?” I felt that one thing was lacking. She replied, “By no means inform me I did not elevate you culturally. The values I taught you and the best way you put on your self each day IS tradition. ”Day-after-day is an opportunity to put on us nicely. That’s the place it got here from. By my work in the neighborhood, I see the youth thrive once they expertise ceremonies. What if we acted like this on a regular basis? That is an space that I want to discover extra carefully in a grasp’s diploma. Id is one thing that I’ve additionally handled and that I’ve to see via.
Inform us extra about Matriarch Resistance and Group 700 and the way these two initiatives took place. What do you hope for from the 2 of them?
Group 700 was based in September 2019 and got here via working with the Youth Advisory Board, a council made up of indigenous youth beneath care. Boxing is an enormous a part of my life and I requested the council if they need to create a aggressive youth boxing crew with youngsters of this age. Group 700’s title comes from the approximate variety of youngsters who age annually in BC with out authorities care. The quantity is now nearer to 1,000. I acquired funding for the crew that was reduce so we began a fundraising marketing campaign to proceed that exceeded our targets. That secures us for over six months. We have now 10 athletes on the crew, 9 of whom are competing. In competitors we practice 5-6 days every week. The purpose is to offer younger folks the chance to stroll nicely and an area the place they will attempt for greatness, inside and outdoors the ring.
Matriarch Resistance is a neighborhood of look after indigenous ladies, a protected place to collect for sisterhood, self-awareness, and train. Basically, it is about defending our ladies. That is what it is about me. There are folks on the market who’re supposed to guard us, however we do not really feel protected. It is not nearly self-defense, but additionally about self-empowerment and belief in regaining one’s personal sovereignty. It’s a collective of indigenous ladies to empower and uplift each other. Anybody can carry somebody or a present to attend this desk. After we began, we have been solely there in a month after which COVID closed us, then we began again on-line in March 2021. We hope to be in the neighborhood in January.
What’s subsequent for you
I’ve numerous issues that I am doing proper now. I need to get my toes beneath me and construct on the applications I began. I may do a grasp’s diploma sooner or later.
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