The Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs First Nations, M\u00e9tis and Inuit Student Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\nHadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs aims to provide a welcoming, supportive and inclusive environment for Indigenous students and visitors to Brock\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n
Maki-Chambers, who is mixed M\u00e9tis, said the centre allowed her to be herself and shed the pressures she felt as a first-generation student.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a spot where everyone was nice and helpful and there was no judgement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Beyond providing a welcoming atmosphere and a place to study, Maki-Chambers said the centre\u2019s staff went the extra mile to make sure she accessed academic resources that were available to her as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did they help me to access free tutoring, they also physically walked me to Student Accessibility Services to help get me connected there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As she continued to learn more about her own Indigenous heritage through her studies and activities at the centre, the Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs team encouraged Maki-Chambers to share her own skills with others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at a point where I could not only learn but teach as well,\u201d she said of the M\u00e9tis dot art activity she led. \u201cIt was a low-anxiety environment, and even though it was my first time leading workshop I felt comfortable because I knew a lot of familiar faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Maki-Chambers says those many of those same people stayed in touch, including the Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like we were being taken care of and we were not forgotten,\u201d she says. \u201cIt still felt very community based and Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs sent newsletters and checked in on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs Director Cindy Biancaniello said the centre strives to connect with each student on a personal level while offering academic and cultural supports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in our name; Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs is a Cayuga word for \u2018they are the helpers\u2019, and that\u2019s precisely what we do,\u201d said Biancaniello. \u201cBy inviting students like Justice to share their culture with others and providing space for them to teach workshops around their specific knowledge, we are helping students to embrace their identity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, with her undergraduate studies and a final year of in-person activities at Hadiya\u2019dag\u00e9nhahs behind her, Maki-Chambers has combined her passions for health and Indigenous knowledge into a career at the Indigenous Diabetes Health Circle in Thorold as a Client Services Project Administrator.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels so good to give back to community just as others at Brock have given back to me,\u201d she said. \u201cAs someone who is diabetic and Indigenous, it\u2019s amazing to see the changes that can be made and it\u2019s good that these issues of health are finally being recognized and addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
With so much to look forward to, Maki-Chambers is also taking time to reflect on what she has accomplished and the supports she has received.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels really good to be the first person in my family to graduate university,\u201d she said. Now, I can show my siblings that it is doable and there are supports here at Brock to help along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the first person in her family to attend university, Justice Maki-Chambers was nervous about whether she could succeed in post-secondary studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":86269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,36,6833,1],"tags":[8881,7488,12752,12622,12040,4226,5748,12753,3200,1759,12738],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86268"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86301,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86268\/revisions\/86301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}