Once you start building relationships, more opportunities present themselves, says Wendy
Transcript
I’ve been working with Indigenous communities for about 10 years now and it was hard getting started, but things sort of snowball once you get in. I mean once you get in, you’re not ever in, but when you start building relationships then other opportunities and doors seem to open; but to get started initially it’s about presence. It’s very much about presence and it’s about sincerity and building partnerships. It’s never doing research ‘on or of’, you’re doing research ‘with’ so it’s reaching out and going into the communities; and so when we started in our – one of our first studies that I was involved in with Indigenous communities we went to community events …
There was – a lot of my research involves people with cancer, people living with cancer, and so they had a community cancer walk as a fundraiser and so we went there to be seen and to make relations, to get to know people. We just started going into the communities to be present and talk to people, and that is really, I think that’s an important piece to build that relationship. So I think for myself because I had lived in First Nations communities that I – I mean I was really comfortable going into the community and kicking rocks down the road and [laughs] just sort of hanging out.
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