Mentorship network for Indigenous students in Atlantic Canada sees funding applications double

When Debbie Martin was a master's and then a PhD student, she saw first-hand the importance of being part of a mentorship network.

Martin — who is Inuk and a member of NunatuKavut — was funded through the Atlantic Aboriginal Health Research Program, which she said was one network among others that aimed to build capacity for Indigenous research led by Indigenous people. 

"There's been a tremendously long history of poor or harmful research … that's negatively affected Indigenous communities," said Martin, who is a professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University. 

Her experience as a student in a mentorship network sparked an interest in continuing to do that kind of work.

"I realized really how important it was for me to talk with other Indigenous students, to see other Indigenous scholars doing the work that they were doing," Martin said.

Today, she leads the Atlantic Indigenous Mentorship Network, which provides grants for Indigenous post-secondary students conducting Indigenous health research. The network also organizes learning opportunities and gatherings that connect students to each other and to people in the community, like elders.

Since the network's inception in 2017, Martin said it has had a "monumental" increase in student applications for funding. Money for the network comes from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

According to a 2022 report, seven people applied for the network's first round of funding through its grants program in 2018, with six applicants being awarded funding. Now, the network receives upwards of 18 applicants each year, and there's not always enough money for each one, said Martin. 

The network has also funded projects for early-career researchers and scholarships for high school students applying to health-related post-secondary programs.

Tara Pride, who is of mixed Mi'kmaw and settler ancestry, said these kinds of mentorship networks are important because Indigenous students can face unique and different challenges than non-Indigenous students.

"There is a historical and ongoing context of colonialism that does really have an impact on feelings of belonging in post-secondary education spaces [and] feelings of … isolation as well," said Pride, who is a member of Sipekne'katik First Nation and an assistant professor of occupational therapy at Western University in Ontario. 

"These training networks really offer an opportunity to build community in a space that perhaps you don't necessarily see your ways of knowing, being and doing inherently reflected back at you."

Pride was a PhD student while also working with the network as its regional co-ordinator. 

"Being a co-ordinator of the network shaped my post-secondary experience in a way that is so different … than if I wouldn't have had that opportunity," said Pride, who continues to be involved with the network.

When the network first started, she said there were not many Indigenous graduate students in the Atlantic region.

"Over the years the sheer number of Indigenous graduate students that are pursuing post-secondary … studies has exponentially increased in the Atlantic, which is very, very exciting to see."

Pride hopes the network can continue for many years to come. But she said it's not necessarily its leadership but students who will decide its future.

"The network is really their oyster."