Roll out the red carpet

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 3526 [post_author] => 7 [post_date] => 2019-12-10 14:00:55 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-12-10 20:00:55 [post_content] => Part of the inspiration for YWCA Regina’s new $45 million Centre for Women and Families opening in 2022 in Regina are six simple leather chairs in the organization’s current lobby. They are always occupied because they offer safe refuge for anyone who needs it. No one is ever asked to leave. Meet four U of R graduates who are leading YWCA Regina into a new era. Like many people, Nathalie Desjarlais had always thought of the YWCA as a place with a gym and a pool. She had no idea of women and families, until she, herself, had nowhere else to turn. “I came here straight from detox. My counsellor made a phone call and the YWCA had a room. I was nervous at first when I got here, about living among a bunch of other women,” she says.

She volunteered at the clothing store, cleaned common areas, participated in communal cooking, and took various classes. “It helped me feel proud, like you’re actually somebody now and not just someone who is hiding in a room.”

It wasn’t long before the residence began to feel like home. “I loved it. I had a key to my own room. I didn’t care if that room was small. I had my own bed. When you don’t have anywhere to go, these things are important.” Desjarlais says living at the Regina YWCA for four years helped her stay sober. “It helped me find myself again. I don’t need to be drunk or high to enjoy my day.” Integrating herself into the community there was key. She volunteered at the clothing store, cleaned common areas, participated in communal cooking, and took various classes. “It helped me feel proud, like you’re actually somebody now and not just someone who is hiding in a room.” She also became a mentor to other women who were struggling with addictions. “Once you talk about it more and talk with other women, you can relate to them. You share each other’s stories and it takes it off your shoulders after so many years of keeping it inside,” she says. Desjarlais has since moved into her own place, which she shares with her adult daughter. She continues to spend time at the YWCA, serving as a role model for other women accessing its services. “Now, I’m actually looking after me. It took a long time. If it wasn’t for this place, I don’t know where I’d be right now. I’m so grateful and thankful that I got to stay here.”

“Last year, we turned away 3,000 women and children from our shelters due to lack of capacity,” says Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen BEd’02, YWCA Regina chief executive officer."

The YWCA is a lifeline for many, currently helping more than 7,000 women and families each year with services that address family homelessness, gender-based violence, housing support, wellness and childcare. It has grown to the point where its current facility, located in downtown Regina, can no longer meet the needs of its staff and clients. “Last year, we turned away 3,000 women and children from our shelters due to lack of capacity,” says Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen BEd’02, YWCA Regina chief executive officer. The YWCA has also had to make do with less-than-ideal spaces for its programming. For example, the daycare is in a former cafeteria, and the children’s craft room is in an old gym change room in the basement. Meeting rooms are often not only double-booked, but also quadruple-booked, with internal and external groups jockeying for spots. Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, YWCA Regina chief executive officer. Photo by Trevor Hopkin The solution? The new YWCA Regina Centre for Women and Families, a $45 million facility to be located in Regina’s Cathedral neighbourhood, at the site of the former Victoria School and Lucy Eley Park. In addition to the YWCA, the centre will serve as a hub for community services, housing Regina Mobile Crisis Services, All Nations Hope Network, Regina Sexual Assault Centre, a commercial kitchen, traditional Indigenous healing and medicine spaces, and various pop-up services, such as immunization clinics and grocery stores. It will also have a café, two childcare centres, a used clothing store, multipurpose spaces that can be rented by the public, and additional housing units. An architectural rendering of the north elevation of the YWCA Regina’s $45 million Centre for Women and Families set for opening in 2022. Courtesy of YWCA Regina An artist’s rendering of the courtyard of the Centre for Women and Families. Courtesy of YWCA Regina The premise for the new centre was inspired by six simple leather chairs in the lobby of the current building. “Those chairs are always full of people who live here and people who are coming off the street and just need a safe place to rest. If people are coming in, whether they’ve been drinking all night, are on drugs or escaping an abusive partner, they’re comfortable walking into our space and know they won’t be asked to leave,” says Coomber-Bendtsen. As she watched people in the chairs, she started wondering, “What if we had services for them while they’re here? What does that look like? How can we prevent people from going into total crisis? That’s how the concept of the Centre for Women and Families started: How many more leather chairs do we need? If we had all the space in the world, what could we do?” The centre will allow the YWCA to fulfil its goal of providing trauma-informed care (practices that promote a culture of safety, empowerment, and healing) for the people it serves. This means every woman, child, and family member who comes into the space is treated based on their specific traumas and experiences. The staff at the reception desk assess the immediate needs of people walking in — do they need food, water, a private space to “chill out”? — as well as whether they need to access longer-term services. All Nations Hope Network is looking forward to moving into the centre once it opens in 2022. Grounded in Indigenous spirituality and cultural practices, the network serves people who are dealing with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C, and who may also be struggling with addictions, homelessness, and poverty. As with the YWCA’s current location, the facilities for All Nations Hope Network are far from ideal. Its administrative offices are located in Fort Qu’Appelle, its outreach programs are run out of a building in North Central Regina, with a ceremonial site and sweat lodge located several blocks away, and traditional medicines are processed and stored in CEO Margaret Kisikaw Piyesis’ garage. Margaret Kisikaw Piyesis, CEO of Regina’s All Nations Hope Network. Photo by Carina Gartner, Details Photography Studio “We need a sacred space where we can process and harvest our medicines and take care of them in a good way. We need a space where we can hold our ceremonies indoors and outdoors. We need a place that is more accessible. We need more staff to be navigating in the community, working with people who walk through our doors,” says Kisikaw Piyesis. All Nations Hope Network will be moving its sacred site into the Centre for Women and Families, creating the city’s first indoor sweat lodge, where people can participate in ceremonies regardless of the season. Kisikaw Piyesis, a traditional medicine practitioner, stresses the importance of ceremony for Indigenous people. “At All Nations Hope Network, we are smudging and praying every day for the people. We are pleading consistently for the health and wellness of our families and children. We believe Indigenous people have solutions for what we face as we move through this place. We need to understand where we’re at and how we can bring solutions to life. We do all these things through ceremony.” Coomber-Bendtsen believes that giving the sweat lodge a prominent place in the city is part of a process of reconciliation for the YWCA, a colonial institution that has been around for more than 150 years. “We recognized that it’s our duty to ensure this space is there and is protected as a healing lodge and sacred space past our time. It’s about giving that land back,” she says. Coomber-Bendtsen addresses staff at YWCA Regina’s headquarters. Kisikaw Piyesis appreciates the partnership with the YWCA. She says, “People are not coming in to save us or control us. They can sit beside us as allies.” Although it’s only two blocks from the current YWCA, the change of location brings the Centre for Women and Families away from the downtown core and brings it into a residential neighbourhood. “That’s very deliberate,” Coomber-Bendtsen says. “Part of creating a sense of something greater than the crisis you’re involved in is about being authentically in a community. It’s about saying, ‘Everyone deserves to be part of a neighbourhood.’ ” She notes that the facility will benefit people living in the community as well. “We’ve become isolated as community members in how we navigate neighbours and neighbourhoods. A healthy, vibrant community needs to have opportunities to give back and opportunities to participate, not just at Christmas, but on an ongoing basis, to exist outside of their fences and their worldviews.” She adds that reducing homelessness and instances where people have no place to go also reduces crime and creates a more vibrant neighbourhood. “The intent is to bring something rather than to take something away. The empty field is being taken away, but our intentions are to bring something even better.” The YWCA is consulting with members of the neighbourhood on features of the centre that can serve them, such as the playground and park that will be located on site. Creating the Centre for Women and Families is no small undertaking, but fortunately Coomber-Bendtsen has a strong team behind her: Tara Molson CCE’09 is the senior director of community programs; Alexis Losie BA’09 is the senior director of operations; and Lindsay Dell BAdmin’02 is the senior director of finance. Each of them is looking forward to the new centre for different reasons. Tara Molson (right) is the senior director of community programs and Alexis Losie is the senior director of operations. They are seen here in YWCA Regina’s Encore Market, a second hand store for low cost toys, clothing, books, and household goods. Photo by Trevor Hopkin Molson, who is also responsible for childcare programs, says, “It will have a great impact on our childcare and families coming in. It’s going to open up space for them to stay a bit longer. Right now, people come drop off kids and leave right away. Having a café, more open space, more reason for them to stick around in the building will be positive.” She is also excited about having a multipurpose space for kids’ activities that isn’t in an old shower. “Having the space to have proper teaching moments is hard to do in a basement with tons of different community groups coming in and out. Having moments with kids to help them heal and move forward in their lives will be a lot easier in a space like the hub.” Losie is looking forward to seeing how a properly designed building can contribute to the well-being of the neighbourhood. “Six chairs have created a community in this lobby, such a strong community that I can’t wait to see what a building that is purpose-built can do for people we serve.” She is eager for a loading dock and storage areas to be able to accept larger donations from the public. Her vision for the building is to have “spaces to store things, spaces for people to volunteer on a regular basis, and a community that’s so magnetic and appealing that we have more volunteers than we know what to do with.” Lindsay Dell is the YWCA Regina’s senior director of finance. Photo by Trevor Hopkin Dell is the most recent member of the team, having only been on the job for a few months. She mentions that the new building will bring in diversified revenue for the organization, through leases from community partners and fee-for-service programming, which means the YWCA will be less reliant on government funding. “The sustainability is really what we want. It’s an exciting project to be a part of. I’m still on the high of being in a new job. For me, it was about coming to an organization that’s very empowering for women,” says Dell. Molson, Losie, Dell and Coomber-Bendtsen are all University of Regina graduates. Each feel that their time at the U of R helped prepare them for their current roles and reflects the work they’re doing at the YWCA. “The only other building I can think of to have residences and offices — people living there, working there, food services, renting places for special events — is the University of Regina. Not a lot of places offer those services on one property,” says Losie. Lindsay Dell (left) and Tara Molson share a laugh during a morning meeting at YWCA Regina. Photo by Trevor Hopkin She sees the sense of community at the YWCA and the University in the same way. “If you were someone at University who went to classes and left campus, you had a different experience than people who immersed themselves in the culture and gave back. That’s how I met people — by getting involved in events going on there. You see that with the women here — there are new-found friendships because they took a sewing class together or took part in some of our events here. Those are bonds that I can liken to student groups. That’s where you develop social circles.” Coomber-Bendtsen agrees and says that the U of R helps to build both individuals and communities by encouraging students to go beyond their comfort zones. “There’s a vulnerability to the age I was when I went to university. There’s a risk — you’re always asked to put yourself in situations that felt uncomfortable. That’s where my greatest amount of growth came from, when I reflect back. Every time I did that, there was success inherent in that. That’s reflective in tackling something like this. I learned through my University of Regina experiences that great things happen when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, where you’re asked to learn something completely different than your skill set. You learn that taking that risk is important.” [post_title] => Opening new doors [post_excerpt] => Part of the inspiration for YWCA Regina’s new $45 million Centre for Women and Families opening in 2022 in Regina are six simple leather chairs in the organization’s current lobby. They are always occupied because they offer safe refuge for anyone who needs it. No one is ever asked to leave. Meet four U of R graduates who are leading YWCA Regina into a new era. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => opening-new-doors [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-06-26 09:30:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-06-26 15:30:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.degreesmagazine.ca/?p=3526 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 4072 [post_author] => 14 [post_date] => 2020-06-30 11:55:55 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-06-30 17:55:55 [post_content] =>

As someone who was born in Guatemala and adopted at the age of 14 months by a Canadian family, Marah Mattison BA’19, BA(Hons)’20 has always been interested in different cultures. “Being adopted, I was immersed into a culture that wasn’t mine. I’m always fascinated by how people can learn different things in different cultural settings. That’s why I went into anthropology, to learn about cultures in the world that are different than mine,” she says.

Mattison, who served in various capacities at the Saskatchewan Science Centre and was a teaching assistant at the U of R, earned her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology in 2019 and just completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in history. Moving from anthropology to history was a natural evolution, as she had taken a few history classes during her undergraduate degree and sees strong links between the two disciplines. “I was studying about how cultures developed, and so much touched on their history. History is more the facts, while cultural anthropology is about how people interpret their history,” she says. “Culture is described more as how people live their everyday lives. A lot of the time, how they live reflects their history. History is the past, and things that happen in the past influence the present,” she adds.

Mattison is especially drawn to Asian cultures. She has focused on Japanese and Korean cultures and histories, even taking language classes in both. “From a young age, a lot of cartoons I watched came from Japan. I was fascinated with the animation. From the animation, I came to learn more about the culture, and that led me to learning about Korean culture, because it’s very tied to Japanese culture. Because of the cartoons, I was learning more about their culture and then more about their history,” she explains.

One day he asked her, “What’s your dream job?” Without hesitation, Mattison responded that she wanted to curate an exhibition of artifacts.

A conversation with history department head Philip Charrier took her research in a different direction, however. One day he asked her, “What’s your dream job?” Without hesitation, Mattison responded that she wanted to curate an exhibition of artifacts. Charrier made it his mission to make that dream a reality. “I realized that Marah needed a career internship,” he says. He wanted to find her more than just a job placement, though. “What I had to find is a professional who would recognize Marah’s potential and mentor her. She will graduate from here with a fantastic academic foundation. But how do you take that and then go and put together an exhibition?”

The Centre’s internship program places students in such organizations as Sofia House, Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, and Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce.

Charrier teamed up with the University’s Community Research Unit, soon to be rebranded as the Community Engagement and Research Centre, to find Mattison an internship that would serve her academic goals, as well as benefit a local organization. The Centre’s internship program places students in such organizations as Sofia House, Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild, and Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce. The internships involve 8 hours a week of students’ time for 13 weeks.

“The internships provide students with valuable work experience that helps kick-start their careers,” says Lynn Gidluck BA’90, MA’96, PhD’15, the Centre’s community director. “As an employer, when you’ve got an entry-level job and have 20 résumés come across your desk, the ones that rise to the top have something beyond their education.”

In addition to the experience gained in the internship, many students have been offered paid summer jobs afterward. They also make valuable community connections that could lead to future employment. “Hopefully by the end of semester, you’ve developed a good relationship with your supervisor in your placement, and they’ll give you a good reference or help you find a job with someone else in their network. Informal networking is how a lot of people find jobs. I think this evens the field a little bit for some students,” Gidluck explains.

Community Research Unit director Lynn Gidluck BA’90, MA’96, PhD’15. (Photo by Trevor Hopkin)

“Students that I’ve helped put into these community placements have been inspiring. Community partners have overwhelmingly said they would welcome interns again, if they can find people like the ones that they’ve had. And Marah is certainly one of them.”

Gidluck feels it’s important that the internship program focuses on placing arts students, specifically. “I think this program shows the broader community what an arts degree teaches students,” she says. “I think there are a lot of misconceptions that if you graduate with an arts degree, you don’t graduate with tangible skills you can use in the workplace. I disagree. An arts degree brings a lot of skills other degrees might not bring, such as critical skills and an ability to write. There are some perceptions out there that it’s not the most practical degree, and I hope that these internships help change that perception.”

The goal was to entice students into science by having them participate in a project that didn’t seem to be only about science.

She also notes that the success of the internship program has challenged some common myths about younger generations lacking a work ethic. “I have not seen this,” Gidluck says.  “Students that I’ve helped put into these community placements have been inspiring. Community partners have overwhelmingly said they would welcome interns again, if they can find people like the ones that they’ve had. And Marah is certainly one of them.”

For Mattison’s internship, Gidluck reached out to Evelyn Siegfried, curator of Indigenous studies at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. Coincidentally, Siegfried was working on a project that culminated in the curation of an exhibition of the museum’s Indigenous artifacts.

The multifaceted project was conceived by Arzu Sardarli, a math and physics professor at the Prince Albert campus of First Nations University of Canada (FNUC). He, along with his colleagues from Royal Saskatchewan Museum and the University of Regina, has initiated a project where students could engage in math and science and be excited about what they were learning. He decided that archaeology was an intriguing route, because there is a lot of science involved in the discipline, such as the carbon dating and statistical analysis of chemical compositions of artifacts. The goal was to entice students into science by having them participate in a project that didn’t seem to be only about science. “Usually what happens is that people learn something about Indigenous culture and oral stories, and other people make some measurements in the lab. With this project, you could combine both of those components,” he says.

Evelyn Siegfried, curator of Indigenous studies at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. (Photo courtesy of Royal Saskatchewan Museum)

“It’s one thing for students to learn about things in a book or a classroom; it’s another to touch the objects yourself.”

There were several phases to the project, which was supported by a Museums Assistance Program grant from Heritage Canada. The first involved Indigenous students, who travelled to the Sturgeon Lake and Pelican Narrows First Nations to interview Elders and gather their oral history about the relationship their people have with local artifacts. Some interviews were conducted in Cree, and others are being transcribed by Mattison. Sardarli also forged a partnership with the University of Saskatchewan allowing students to use their synchrotron to analyze artifacts that Siegfried selected from the Royal Saskatchewan Museum’s Indigenous object archives. The final phase of the project will be the curation of an exhibition of artifacts that would tour the museum, the University of Regina, and the two First Nations. That’s where Mattison came in.

She used the internship experience as the basis of her honours requirement, becoming the first student in the Department of History to do a practical, hands-on project instead of a research paper for their honours degree.

Arzu Sardarli, a math and physics professor at the Prince Albert campus of First Nations University of Canada (FNUC), says the purpose of this project was to learn about Indigenous culture and research and to get students excited about science by having them participate in a project that wasn’t only about science. (Photo courtesy of Arzu Sardarli)

Sardarli wanted both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students involved in the project. “I’m not Indigenous, but as a professor at FNUC, I’ve worked with Indigenous students and learned from Elders. When I see interest from non-Indigenous people in these kinds of projects, I really appreciate that. The purpose of this project was to learn about Indigenous culture and research. The participation of Indigenous students [Margo Jobb, Alyse Custer, Ann Marie Dorian BA’16, BA(Hons)’18 and Skylar Wall] and non-Indigenous students [Mattison, Khaysa Osmanli and Jyotsnamani Mohanta], together, is very important.”

“These artifacts were found right here in Saskatchewan,” Sardarli says, noting that it was imperative for a student to curate the exhibition. “It’s one thing for students to learn about things in a book or a classroom; it’s another to touch the objects yourself. I always encourage students to participate in a research project – it’s very important for learning.”

Siegfried feels it’s essential for the exhibition to eventually return to the First Nations from where the project and stories originated. “Hopefully it will show people that archaeology is an interesting area as a discipline that Indigenous students may want to go into and study.”

Research assistant Margo Jobb (left) gets Pelican Narrow’s Elder Adam Highway’s oral account of some of the Indigenous artifacts included in the Royal Saskatchewan Museum exhibit.

(Photo courtesy of Arzu Sardarli)

To curate the exhibition, Mattison listened to the translations of the oral stories and, along with Siegfried, went through Indigenous artifacts from the museum’s archives. Siegfried provided Mattison with the background information of the pieces, explaining what they represented in terms of culture, what they could have been used for, and how they were made.

Throughout the process, Mattison learned that curation is not as simple as some may think. “It takes of lot of time and collaboration,” Mattison says. “At a museum, you have to write a few sentences for each artifact. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it has to be short enough for people to read, yet fully explain the artifact. It takes a lot of editing,” she says.

“Unfortunately with the current circumstances, I wasn't able to fully develop my exhibit or display it, but maybe this project will inspire future students to carry on my work or create their own.”

The project was incredibly gratifying for Mattison. She used the internship experience as the basis of her honours requirement, becoming the first student in the Department of History to do a practical, hands-on project instead of a research paper for their honours degree. In the Fall, Mattison will be attending the University of Minnesota to pursue a graduate degree in heritage studies and public history. “It’s interpreting culture and artifacts in order to create exhibits for the public – very much what I’ve been doing in the internship,” she explains. “To be a curator, you have to know a lot about many things, so a master’s degree will give me the knowledge to be successful – and the tools necessary to have a career in museums.”

Marah Mattison was accepted into the Heritage Studies and Public History program at the University of Minnesota – the first Canadian to do so. She begins her studies in September. (Photo by Trevor Hopkin)

The original plan was for the project to wrap up in April 2020, but due to COVID-19, it was put on pause. Says Mattison, “Unfortunately with the current circumstances, I wasn't able to fully develop my exhibit or display it, but maybe this project will inspire future students to carry on my work or create their own.”

While, ideally, Mattison would like to work in a museum that specializes in Asian history and culture, she would be happy working at any venue where she can continue learning and bring history to life. “A lot of the time when you’re talking about the past, it isn’t necessarily relevant to people. I like the visual representation that an artifact can bring to history and how it can connect people to that history. It can captivate people and bring history to life. That’s what I really like about this work.”

[post_title] => A dream comes true [post_excerpt] => Marah Mattison had a unique internship opportunity this past semester. Through a Faculty of Arts internship at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum she realized a dream – to curate a museum exhibition. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the exhibit has yet to be unveiled. By completing the curating project, Mattison became the first University of Regina history student to earn an honours degree by completing a hands-on project rather than writing a paper. No doubt that also helped her gain acceptance into the Heritage Studies and Public History program at the University of Minnesota – the first Canadian to do so. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => a-dream-comes-true [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2020-07-03 09:40:17 [post_modified_gmt] => 2020-07-03 15:40:17 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.degreesmagazine.ca/?p=4072 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )