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Minds In Motion

The 2023 project, Minds in Motion, was a youth-led program co-created by youth from Carleton University, northern Indigenous communities, and other multicultural backgrounds. The project utilized the Two-Eyed Seeing approach, which integrates Indigenous and Western ways of knowing, and also employed the methodologies of community-based participatory research to ensure that the voices

and perspectives of the communities involved were central to the project.

The project culminated in a trip up to Keewaywin, where several Carleton students and Thunder Bay youth led a workshop for the local youth. The workshop aimed to promote growth and wellness and focuses on topics such as healthy relationships, stress, coping, and self-care, and cultural continuity.

Our Capstone Vlog-umentary

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Etuaptmunk

We built our project on the foundation of Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmunk), which involves learning to integrate the strengths of both Indigenous and Western knowledge systems for the benefit of all. By emphasizing this approach with Carleton students and the youth, we aimed to develop an Indigenous youth-led program that could be implemented in Indigenous communities.

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Making the Project

In terms of creating the project, the youth made the big decisions. They voted on what topics they deemed were important to bring up to community, such as, the science of non-suicidal self injury (NSSI), social media and it’s impact on self-esteem, cultural continuity and parental relationships, drugs and the brain, and stress and coping. Additionally, we hosted project-focused meetings every Sunday, which allowed us to them, get their opinions, and let them lead in decision-making. They were also the ones who chose what activities would occur during the programming event. They chose more traditional activities (ex. Beading and dream catcher weaving) and traditional foods (ex. Moose meat stew, bannock, and hangover stew) to be added into the program. This inclusive approach not only helped to foster ownership but created a sense of agency, empowering the youth to shape the program, their experience, and the future of the project.

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Visual Elements

Our project had a variety of design elements. The BMPD group created Instagram stories and posts, infographics, research posts, Google forms, and for our final project, a vlog-umentary.

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Instagram

We found that sending emails wasn't really effective, so we created the Instagram @carleton.iyfp to better communicate with the youth! In a big group chat, we sent out updates about the project and reminders to participate and join the drop-in sessions.

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What was the most rewarding part of this project?

"There were many rewarding parts of this project. I experienced so many different things that I've never and will probably never experience again: going to Thunder Bay and Keewaywin, and getting the chance to make great friends with youth from Thunder Bay and Keewaywin, and students Carleton Neuroscience. Although the project was quite stressful and required a lot of hard work, having all these new experiences and seeing people coming together to create a really great and rewarding final storytelling product that was so different from other capstone projects was an amazing experience."

Erica, BMPD

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