For our third installment of WorkFirst Wednesdays, I have a short story to inspire, and perhaps shift, how you may see working with individuals who reside on First Nations.
When I was considering starting a consulting engineering business in 1992 , my colleague introduced me to three elders having lunch at Wanuskewin Heritage Park. When I asked them what they thought of my business idea and the personal and professional challenges I would face, they thought about it for a minute, and then they said “All the bad things you’re worried about will happen…get over it.” They explained that there were no First Nations engineers they knew of who were working on First Nations projects, and I needed to face the challenges head on and act as a role model.
My experience was even more difficult than I feared, and I recalled the Elder’s advice often over the years. My involvement with First Nations has exposed me to jealousy, racism, and a lack of support for First Nations entrepreneurs.
But I was lucky! These experiences gave me a thicker skin, and I’ve met and befriended so many wonderful people along the way.
I found that I needed a positive way to communicate these challenges to resource companies, consultants, and contractors in a way that was not discouraging or relied on too may negative stories. For me, these challenges often bring back memories of visiting my First Nation community in rural Saskatchewan when I was child…which brings me to the story I promised you. I hope this tale can help you persevere through challenging moments;
I remember visiting my grandmother on the reserve when I was a kid. You would go from rural highways, which were never that great, and as you would get closer the journey is similar to a project; the closer you get to a destination the harder it seems to get. So as it gets harder traveling on these secondary highways, it gets rough, and as you leave the highway you have a gravel road, a little rougher, it’s hard, it’s hot…so the journey is hard. And literally, as you get closer to my grandmother’s house, you had to go through some water, up over a hill by the church and then over to the house. Going through the water was the last and hardest step in the journey, and all I can remember is how wonderful it would be and there was going to be apple pie with a little wedge of cheese on top when we got there. It all started off as a journey, a decent start, and then it started getting a little bit harder, a little bit noisier and not perfect. It needed the knowledge there was a reward at the end to make it worthwhile.
For me, the journey with WorkFirst is worth the time and effort… because for the contractors and the community, there is pie at the end of that journey.
While I realized I can’t solve many of the challenges facing Indigenous people, I can be part of delivering important projects with greater Indigenous participation. This is what fueled the development of WorkFirst; an approach which is worth the effort, but it can also bring challenges which can be a part of working with people who have a history of oppression, reduced resources, and a systems which don’t always acknowledge these realities.
We’d love to hear your stories, so please share! Our collective experiences can make the road ahead that much easier.
