Language surrounding Indigenous development changed at forum's final day
- Angela Hill | August 25, 2016
Aboriginal business leaders, chiefs and entrepreneurs took steps towards changing the language of Indigenous development during the final day of the World Indigenous Business Forum (WIBF) in Saskatoon.
Keynote speaker Ernesto Sirolli, founder of the Sirolli Institute, read out the current Wikipedia definition for Indigenous development and suggested that it was embarrassing.
“I am kind of outraged that Indigenous development is not the domain of Indigenous people,” he said, after reading that, “Indigenous development refers to a variety of coordinated efforts, usually by first world organizations, to support progress in modernizing or bettering life...”
Rosa Walker, president and CEO of the Indigenous Leadership Development Institute, the people behind the business forum, said with that challenge in mind, a group of 30 delegates met and spent time creating “Indigenous definition for Indigenous development.”
“We just reviewed it in both English and Spanish and people just passed the resolution by standing up and clapping for it. Everyone in the room was excited about it,” she said.
“It means that the work that we are doing is important, that people not only engage and inspire one another to do something, but we do it. We just did it.”
Recap Day 1 WIBF: Aboriginal business, entrepreneurs "on fire," conference hears
The newly adopted definition being passed on to the website starts this way, “Indigenous development is the organized effort by Indigenous Peoples to honour, enhance and restore their well-being while retaining a distinctiveness that is consistent with their ancestral values, aspirations, ways of working and priorities on behalf of all Future Generations."
That’s not the only thing Sirolli championed during this keynote. He talked about all development being indigenous development and that the most important thing people who want to help can do is listen.
He started simply.
“I thought the most important thing in life was to make mistakes because that’s how you learn,” he said.
“But I was wrong, the most important thing in life is to make mistakes and tell people about it, that’s when things start to happen.”
In his model, instead of walking into a community and telling people what they need to do to improve, he believes you should listen to the people talk about their needs.
“Wisdom is about allowing the people with the passion to come forward,” he said.
The WIBF was the place for that. The lunch time panel had four young innovators share their experience starting a business and the importance of mentorship. Tenille Campbell is the photographer and artist behind Sweetmoon Photograhy, Chantel Hounget is the co-founder of the Princess Shop and CEO of Fresh Living, Jack Saddleback is the executive member of the University of Saskatchewan Students’’ Union and Jaris Swidrovich is the first self-identified First Nations doctor of pharmacy in Canada, teaching at the U of S.
Background on WIBF in Saskatoon:
- Saskatoon excited to share Indigenous business success at international conference
- WIBF youth committee gearing up for conference
- Local, international talent featured during Indigenous arts festival
- World Indigenous conference brings business leaders to Saskatoon
- Indigenous music festival takes centre stage
When Campbell started out, she said that it was difficult to find mentorship within the photography world, so now when people approach her she works hard to make sure they don’t feel as left out as she did.
“I have a chance to not let anyone feel that their questions are stupid and even things that are easily google-able, I would reply back with honest experience and stories because mentoring and giving back is a huge foundation to Indigenous businesses,” she said.
All of the panelists worked to give back in some way. Hounget wanted to ensure that no girl would skip her grad because she didn’t have the money for a dress with this in mind she founded the Princess Shop, which allows these young women to have access do donated dresses. Saddleback does outreach and has become very outspoken on trans rights and mental health issues. Swidrovich volunteers with SWITCH, Sanctum and the City of Saskatoon’s Committee on Race Relations.
“I hope to make changes, the reason I am here on this earth I feel. Positive changes to patient care for all patients, in particular indigenous people,” he said.
“Just focusing in on what I can effect in terms of change would be within the realm of pharmacy, so with my department of pharmacy and nutrition, I’m already working on how can we integrate indigenous learning and Indigenous values and beliefs, Indigenous health inequity information etc. into our curriculum,”
He continues to work with other colleges at the university.
Even having organized many of the forums before, Walker found the panelists’ messages inspiring
“I love that almost every single one of them said, ‘if you want to be successful, you need to give back’ that to me is what we believe as Indigenous People, that we’re not alone in pursing our success, We are a huge community and if one is successful we can all be successful,” she said.
With inspiration and success stories still fresh in the minds of delegates, the forum came to a close with reminders that in 2017 WIBF would be in Chile and in 2018 in New Zealand.