Camosun College recently received $143,480 in government funding for academic upgrading for their indigenous education programs.
Meanwhile, the college’s indigenous education department has a new name.
“We’re thrilled,” says Janice Simcoe, chair and co-leader of what is now known as Ey ēʔ Sqȃ’lewen: the Centre for Indigenous Education and Community Connections (IECC). Simcoe hopes to use the new funding to better the students’ experience at Camosun.
“You cost how much staffing will be and you cost how much the materials will be,” she says. “This program has been built on the behalf of students who are living in extreme poverty. There are supports for transportation, there’s a bit of emergency funding…”
Indigenous people are largely under-funded and ignored by the Canadian government, so when funding becomes available most schools try and get to it as fast as possible, says Simcoe.
“We have hired staff and faculty, got together a facility, student programs are being upgraded,” she says. “Our goal is that indigenous students will see themselves in what happens to them at the college. This funding will make all the difference.”
On September 26, the Camosun’s aboriginal education department was renamed to Ey ēʔ Sqȃ’lewen: the Centre for Indigenous Education and Community Connections. Ey ēʔ Sqȃ’lewen roughly translates to “good heart, good mind, good spirit.”
“ Ey ēʔ Sqȃ’lewen was given to us by an elder,” says Simcoe. “We love what it means. It’s the thing we aspire to in our provision of education and services to indigenous students; we want good heart, good mind, and good spirit when we work with the students.”
Student representatives at the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) are also excited about the changes.
“Part of the reason for changing is bringing in that community component,” says Shayli Robinson, First Nations director for the CCSS. “It really demonstrates that community engagement.”
Robinson says the name change and ceremony represents a stronger interconnectedness within the centre and its community. The recent name-changing ceremony took place on the Lansdowne campus at Na’tsa’maht, Camosun’s Aboriginal Gathering Place.
Robinson also feels the new language is positive, having avoided the word “aboriginal.”
“I hate the word ‘aboriginal,’” says Robinson. “The [prefix] ‘ab’ literally means ‘away from.’”