Spreading monetary literacy throughout Indigenous communities

Legare, together with Michael Carlson – an Ontario-based planner whose follow is concentrated solely on working with Indigenous individuals – began the IFC simply over a 12 months in the past. From a nuclear group of 5 members, the collective has grown to incorporate round 30 individuals thanks largely to Carlson’s efforts to seek for and recruit new companions.

“As we are saying in our mission and imaginative and prescient assertion, Indigenous peoples in Canada have suffered centuries of financial harms attributable to colonialism,” Legare says. “We imagine by connecting Indigenous people who find themselves working within the monetary sector, we are able to create wider systemic change, to scale back or undo these financial harms.”

Seeking advocates and storytellers

Geographically, the IFC contains representatives from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario; professionally, they’ve experience in varied areas of planning together with pensions, insurance coverage, and small-business planning. As soon as a month, the group will get collectively to share tales and brainstorm on the place they need to focus their energies.

“First, there’s the networking facet,” Legare mentioned. “There aren’t very many Indigenous individuals in Canada, full cease, and that circle turns into even smaller while you zoom in on these concerned in monetary companies. So we wish to create a platform the place we may make the connections essential to not simply reach enterprise for ourselves, but additionally spark vital change.”

The following focus space is schooling. Legare factors to the success of Theodora Warrior, a Blackfoot member of the Piikani Nation in Southern Alberta. She established a workshop sequence known as Cash Moccasins, which is predicated on a program she herself used to flee a vicious cycle of homelessness, unemployment, and debt.