Canada: Indigenous woman promotes indigenous culture in U of T

Besides celebrating past and present indigenous students, the main motive of the event was to educate people about Indigenous traditions.

When Eileen Antone, an indigenous person came to the University of Toronto (U O T) in the early 90s, there was only one other Indigenous student.

"My mantra became, 'Where are the aboriginal students? Where are the aboriginal faculty? Where are the aboriginal staff?", Antone was quoted as saying by CBCNews reports said.

Her goal was to see the growth of Indigenous community at the university and after years of hard work there was the first 500-person in the school gymnasium on Saturday, said Antone.

Julie Blair, the finance coordinator of U of T said the powwow celebration enabled everyone to gather together to share their culture

One of Blair’s post in her Facebook reads: “What a great day! I kept looking around in awe at what we accomplished by working together in a good way. Thanks to everyone who came out to the Honouring our Students Pow Wow and Indigenous Festival at U of T! Indigenous Studies Students' Union”

Yet another post  by Indigenous Studies Students' Union (ISSU) - University of Toronto reads,“ISSU will be forever grateful to everyone who helped make this event happen. We are all still in awe from yesterday. We'll see everyone next year! #HOSPW2017 #IndigenizeURCampus.”

Following the 2014 federal Truth and Reconciliation Report (TRC), the University of Toronto released its own report in January recommending more spaces for Indigenous people and promotion of Indigenous employees.

Since the TRC report came out, there had been more awareness on campus about Indigenous issues, said Blair

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett and a U of T alumna was also present at the powwow and said, "We never had anything that really taught us about, not only this history of Indigenous people in our country, but the presence of Indigenous people right now," CBCNews reports said.

While stressing the need of the personal cultural identity for Indigenous students to succeed, it was also important, Bennett said that non-Indigenous people recognize and learn about Indigenous culture in Toronto.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)

Image of Indigenous people in Canada: Wikipedia