Elected student official attends first annual RISE Summit in Toronto
- Tiffany Head | March 31, 2016
Twenty-two year old elected student official, Larrissa Wahpooseyan, arranged for nine student reps and herself from Saskatchewan to attend the First Annual Racialized and Indigenous Students Experience (RISE) Summit in Toronto on March 19-21 2016.
Wahpooseyan is the Saskatchewan chair for the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) in Ottawa and sits in the First Nations University of Canada (FNUC) students association as the business representative.
She works part-time as a research assistant at the Indigenous Peoples Health Research Centre (IPHRC) at the University of Regina (U of R) and top of all that she is a full time student on her fourth year of business administration at the University of Regina/FNUC.
“I spent many years on the student association, last year was my first time taking on a leadership role and it was very difficult,” said Wahpooseyan who continues to volunteer much of her time.
The RISE Summit was created by the CFS, to gather students of minority from all over Canada to discuss the issue of racism and colonialist violence in their universities/campuses.
“The space provided there was very safe, we do not have to justify what we are saying or why we are the way we are,” said Wahpooseyan.
These students were given the opportunity to gather together to learn, to heal, and to share stories of success and struggle.
“We figured that we’re not all alone, we face these same issues and these are issues that need to be talked about, and they need to be addressed,” said Wahpooseyan.
Student activist have been successful in pressuring colleges and universities to take real action to address the historic inequities and structural violence against those who are the most marginalized groups in society and keeping the issues in the public eye.
“I think that when we team up its very important that we collaborate. Our voices get much stronger and we empower each other and we take pride in who we are,” said Wahpooseyan
Wahpooseyan talks about the Indigenization at the U of R campus and how she wanted to open up the summit to as much racialized and Indigenous students from both the U of R and FNUC campuses to provide this opportunity for them, to empower them, and to encourage them to get them involved.
“We value what they have to say, their ideas and their beliefs; we care about the issues that you face every day while you’re trying to pursue your post-secondary education,” said Wahpooseyan.
Wahpooseyan says they (First Nations people) are being told what Indigenization looks like without being asked what it looks like to them.
“They have a smudge room in the new residence and put up Cree names for the residences; that is wonderful, those are baby steps,” said Wahpooseyan, but believes there can be more done.
On the last day of the RISE summit the students in attendance discussed what it looked like in the future for racialized students. It was mostly revolved around policies and ensuring that those people that the policies directly affect are consulted before decisions are made.