This week’s episode explores the experience of indigenous students studying at Canadian universities, and the issues that they care about. Six percent of the entire world population identifies as indigenous, and 5% of the Canadian population. In countries with a history of colonization, such as Canada, there is an underlying pain and tension between the indigenous and settler communities. As a result of generational trauma and discrimination, Indigenous students face different obstacles to their education than settler or international students.

This week’s guest is Fernanda Yanchapaxi, an Indigenous/Mesitzx PhD student in the Social Justice Program at the Ontario Institution for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She has over 15 years experience working in the education sector to promote egalitarian policies and strategies that contribute to the healing of generations of racism and oppression. She has worked with youth and professionals to promote indigenous activism, policy development, and program implementation. Her current research focuses on indigenous knowledge with the context of Western intellectual property norms in her home country of Ecuador.