After watching the videos presented to us in week 8, I wanted to search for more example of youths’ use of technology as a means to document their peoples’ experiences and learn more about their culture, history and perspectives on various issues. That is when I stumbled upon the Nanisiniq: Arviat History Project.
This is a collaborative project involving elders and youths from Nunavut as well as the University of British Columbia. The site includes many videos in which the youths interview elders, other members of the community and each other to gain a better understanding of their culture while documenting it in an effort to preserve it. A historical timeline and stories about history, the caribou and survival skills are also featured in the site.
This is but another great example of how youths are using media as a medium and an opportunity to tell others about their culture and present it to the world. Despite living in the same country, these youths recognize that Canadians know very little, if anything at all, about their culture and ways of life. One of the youths involved in the project discusses how the Government isn’t properly educating Canadians about Inuit culture, which is why he feels it this project is important to teach his peoples and others about their ways of life in order to keep their culture alive.
This site shows how youths are able to create something that is positive and educational when given the proper tools, freedom to be creative and access to traditional knowledge.
I also came across this article in which a local Vancouver-based hip-hop artist talks about how she uses media and music to bring awareness to the missing and murdered Indigenous women. Hip-hop, which she describes as a “contemporary form of oral tradition”, is how she communicates her peoples’ history for others to hear. The song “Sisterz” is quite powerful.