Student Heritage-Minute Commercials Inspire Understanding of Indigenous Issues
Highway of Tears, Idle No More, and Residential Schools among topics covered in student-made videos
The atrium in the First Peoples House of Learning was packed with students, faculty and friends of Trent to see dozens of Heritage Minute videos on multiple screens at the Indigenous Studies community café on Wednesday March 27.
Shalafae Maracle, Brenna Lawrence and Keeana Drummond worked for weeks on their Heritage Minute about missing Aboriginal women and the Highway of Tears. Ms. Maracle, a Psychology student who identified herself as Mohawk, explained the video’s three-part focus on awareness, knowledge and justice, with a reminder that, “these are not just women. These are mothers, sisters, and daughters.” Fourth-year Cultural Studies student Ms. Lawrence and first-year Psychology student Ms. Drummond both agreed that the issue of missing Aboriginal women is tied to overall Indigenous issues faced worldwide.
Students presented the Heritage Minute commercials for their second-term assignment for Indigenous Studies 1000y, designed to help educate mainstream audiences about an Indigenous issue or person within Indigenous history around the world.