Young innovators wow at business forum
- Angela Hill | September 11, 2016
Young, Indigenous innovators working to make a difference were front and centre during the World Indigenous Business Forum in Saskatoon, Aug. 23.
A lunchtime panel brought together a pharmacist, political leader, photographer and Princess Shop co-founder with newly elected Cowessess First Nation chief, Cadmus Delorme, as the moderator.
Delorme asked each panelist to explain their personal slogan.
Tenille Campbell is the photographer behind Sweetmoon Photography and creator of Tea & Bannock, a blog for Indigenous storytellers and artist to share their experiences. Her slogan is “no regrets.”
“Sometimes you’ll fail, but what you learn in failing is important. We’re meant to fail, we’re meant to be humble. So every time that I fail, and trip – and it’s often – I think what will I learn?”
Be the change, is the slogan of Jaris Swidrovich, the first self-identified First Nations doctor of pharmacy in Canada. It’s also his tattoo.
“What am I doing myself to be that change? I have to do what I want to see a difference,” he said.
Through his role at the U of S, he talks about Indigenous people and health inequities, and he works to help Indigenous health science students to feel welcome.
“And feel like becoming a doctor or pharmacist or nurse is not something extraordinary, but it’s something normal that should be as normal to us as anyone else even though it is an extraordinary achievement,” Swidrovich said.
Related WIBF stories:
- WIBF 2016: Sharing success and economic knowledge
- Reclaiming Indigenous development at WIBF
- WIBF youth gearing up for conference
Jack Saddleback is an executive member of the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union (USSU) and he was the first transgendered USSU president.
“I think my slogan would be everything happens,” he said.
“I’ve been couch surfing at one point in my life, I was homeless, things like that and I’ve gone to other things, such as presenting artwork to the Queen herself. Not the drag queen, sorry, the Queen of England ... everything happens. Just [have an] open heart, open mind.”
He has advice for future leaders.
“We should be unapologetic about who we are. We should be unapologetic about being Indigenous, about being a different romantic orientation, about being a different gender identity,” he said.
“We should be able to celebrate who we are because as we know … there are no closets in teepees.”
For Chantel Hounjet, co-founder of the Princess Shop and the CEO of Fresh Living, it’s about going for goals.
“She dreams, she creates, she believes, she conquers… It’s coming up with those ideas and dreams and turning them into something real and believing in yourself and conquering those and not looking back.”
The Princess Shop ensures girls have the opportunity to go to their graduations in a beautiful dress – and over the past nine grad seasons they’ve helped 755 graduates get into dresses. Of those, 72 per cent have self-identified as Indigenous.
“We get them with the dress, but it’s so much more than the dress,” Hounjet said. They’ve developed a mentorship and scholarship program.
Building on this, Delorme had advice for current leadership.
“A lot of youth have great ideas about giving it forward … sometimes as leaders, as ones who have the ability to empower, sometimes we find reasons why it can’t be done. We have to change our own words as leaders and how can we empower this to be done.”