Marsha Hanen Global Dialogue & Ethics Award Recipients
2020
Critical Dialogues on Policing in Canada: Towards Peace, Human Rights, Equity, and Social Justice
Co-Applicants: Michael Eze (Chemistry) & Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba (English)
Award: $4,800
The Critical Dialogues on Policing webinar series was initiated in response to ongoing conversations about racism and policing in North America. Recent protests resulting from policing killings and violent treatments of racialized peoples in Canada and elsewhere worked to provoke, yet again, questions about policing and racism. Because these occurrences are of a sensitive nature easily provoking profound emotions, critical conversations about them are often difficult to hold, usually polarised along simplistic lines. As an educational initiative, the series aimed to provide a platform for holding critical dialogues on some difficult questions about racism and policing in Canada. These conversations aimed to grapple with some core questions about policing in relation to such issues as racism, human rights, community relations, and social justice in Canada and beyond. Through focused webinar panel discussions, the series helped to put some critical issues and questions in perspectives.
2019
“Thinking the Human in a Posthuman World”
Applicant: Jane Barter (Religion and Culture)
Award: $1,600
This project sought to facilitate a conversation around what it means to be human in a world in which those who are accorded humanity—including human rights—are increasingly few in number, while those who are relegated to animal or “bare life” have become the global norm. This grant enabled me to make several key partnerships that (1)enhanced my own research project, which is the writing of a monograph (already underway) on subjectivity Western political thought (2) to organize a scholarly converation of diverse speakers on the theme of what it is to be fully human in a posthuman world at 海角社区 in conjunction with the Axworthy Lectures and Spring Institute of the Centre for Liberal Arts and Secular Society. It also enabled me to build capacity at 海角社区 among scholars working on questions of posthumanism, particularly among those working in Gender Studies, Cultural Theory, Critical Race Theory and Indigenous Studies.
2019-2020
Poverty, Racialization, and Opportunity Gaps: A Comparative Geo-Spatial Analysis of Student Mobility in High-Poverty Urban Winnipeg Elementary Schools
Principal Applicant: Jeannie Kerr (Faculty of Education)
Award: $6,300
This research program seeks to understand the dynamics of racialized inequalities for students attending schools in urban, high-economic poverty neighbourhoods in Winnipeg, through a mixed-method geo-spatial analysis that seeks to examine the relationships between available community supports, student mobility, and academic achievement. This research engages educational research with the mapping practices in the discipline of urban geography, and highlights the spatialized reproduction of educational inequalities in the urban geography of Winnipeg.
2018
Understanding the Power of Walls to Bridges, Prison Education and Community-based Learning in Manitoba
Principal Applicant: Kevin Walby (Criminal Justice)
Award: $1,600
The Walls to Bridges Program at University of Winnipeg is a Canadian prison education initiative that brings campus-enrolled students together with incarcerated students inside the prison walls to study university and college courses for credit. The Walls to Bridges Winnipeg Program aims to improve education access for prisoners in Canada. The program is also a much needed opportunity for the university community to become more aware of the role of the correctional system in Canadian society.
2017
The Collaborative Village: Establising and Maintaining Community Relationships
Principal Applicant: Jobb Arnold (Conflict Resolution Studies)
Award: $5,000
Winnipeg is an epicentre for building Newcomer-Indigenous relations, and this initiative will
contribute to this important dialogue while strengthening community partnerships. The
Collaborative Village project will work through existing connections at two Winnipeg schools to
deliver six half-day community activities for twenty-six students from diverse Indigenous,
Newcomer and Settler backgrounds. Through dialogue and experiential learning, students will
explore what climate change means for their futures and what education and career options can
help prepare them for changing local and global dynamics. University mentors will facilitate
constructive spaces for establishing and maintaining positive relationships.
The Healing Forest
Principal Applicant: Lee Anne Block (Education)
Award: $3,400
The Healing Forest Project plans to create a place for learning and healing in St. John's Park in the North End of WinnipegThe site in now part of the City of Winnipeg's master plan for the redevelopment of the park. The Healing Forest is a living memorial to Indigenous children lost to the residential school system and lost in child welfare systems. Together with nearby schools, we will develop place-based learning and inter-generational learning programs to connect students to their histories and cultivate citizenship and sustainability.
The Effects of Animal-Assisted Activities (AAA) on the Well-being of Minority Students
Principal Applicant: Laura Sokal (Education)
Award: $1,000
While mental health issues in children are a growing concern internationally, little is known about universal, preventative interventions that foster mental health and well-being in minority children and children of immigrants, especially those who have experienced anti-Muslim discrimination in schools. Building on an ongoing practicum partnership established 10 years ago between the University of Winnipeg and a Turkish-German school, we will investigate the effects of animal assisted activities (AAA) on students’ mental health and well-being at the boarding school in Germany with the intent of learning more about the effects of AAA and their application to minority and immigrant students.
De-Colonizing Criminal Justice Outcomes: Role of Indigenous Innovation in Manitoba
Principal Applicant: Shailesh Shukla (Indigenous Studies)
Award: $5,000
There continues to be an over-representation of Aboriginal people involved at all levels of the criminal justice system despite decades of studies and recommendations. This research study will generate new insights through a case study to explore criminal justice as it relates to Indigenous peoples from human-rights approach, and will contribute to a scholarly understanding of local Indigenous innovation with self-determined criminal justice outcomes. A community-based workshop will be organized to facilitate dialogue and share findings. This dialogue can be used to strengthen and re-create systems and models of community-led action, and decolonize criminal justice systems.
2016
Postcolonial Child Rights: Ethics, Identity and Migration
Principal Applicant: Emma Alexander (History)
Award: $1,500
This project investigates the child rights associated with identity, naming and documentation in a postcolonial context. It examines the causes, impacts, and will suggest possible solutions and ways of championing these rights in the contexts of Canada, DR Congo and India.
Diaspora Engagement in International Intergenerational Gender Alliances Countering Violence Against Women in South Sudan: Phase 2
Principal Applicant: Marilou McPhedran (Human Rights)
Award: $5,580
Phase 1 of this project was very lucky to receive $6000 from the Marsha Hanen Fund in 2014, to create the fledgling NGO, Manitoba Women 4 Women South Sudan here in Winnipeg. Phase 1 worked on capacity building here in Winnipeg, as well as strengthening cooperation at the international level - specifically the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. Phase 2 will focus on administrative and research support for ongoing dialogue and action regarding the sexualized gender-based violence in South Sudan, with emphasis on identifying, engaging and supporting youth leaders in Manitoba and the girl ambassadors for peace in South Sudan.
Inuit Education Forum: A Gathering to Harness Knowledge of Inuit Education Leaders
Principal Applicant: Melanie O'Gorman (Economics)
Award: $6,900
This Inuit Education Forum will allow leaders in Inuit education to gather and share knowledge of key determinants of increased educational attainment and academic achievement in Inuit Nunangat. The forum will be held in Nain, NL in order to ensure community members take part in the knowledge synthesis. The proceedings of the forum will be summarized in a film and academic paper which will be disseminated widely across the North. The goal of this knowledge mobilization is to support improved education policy and practice in Inuit Nunangat, and consequently to contribute to improved socio-economic prosperity across the North.
Parents Be the Change Participants Inquiry Project
Principal Applicant: Sheri-Lynn Skwarchuk (Education)
Award: $3,000
This project will align three organizations (MERN, MAPC, and Austin Elementary School) with a researcher and students from the University of Winnipeg to understand the shared experiences and challenges faced by parents in a diverse range of personal experiences. Through the use of a new participatory inquiry research methodology, participants and researchers will align and collectively explore the issues facing today’s Manitoban parent, with supports for making change. It is hoped that targeted minority groups (i.e., women, rural participants, and parents of children with special learning needs) can feel empowered through this process of inquiry, change, leading to sustainable life improvements.
2015
Children's Rights and Online Privacy Practices
Principal Applicant: Fiona Green (Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications)
Award: $7,000
There is a lack of uniform regulation governing acceptable content in the representation by adults of children online, and a variety of practices when it comes to posting identity-revealing stories and images. While multiple sources provide guidelines to help adults regulate the actions of children online, there is no canonical consensus governing what adults and parents should say/show online about their own children or dependent minors in their care. This project takes a leadership role in developing and archiving conversations about online ethical practices and goals, preferring an approach that encourages ongoing negotiating and dialogue from multiple stakeholders to one aimed at generating a template of rules. This will be done through: 1) the establishment of an interactive website, 2) holding a face-to-face day of dialogue and a symposium, 3) publishing findings, and 4) developing a course.
Cloud-Based Schizophrenia Recovery Aide and Research Tool
Principal Applicant: Renée Douville (Biology)
Award: $7,000
The adoption of phone apps for mental wellness is becoming increasingly popular. We are beginning production of a phone app for individuals and families living with schizophrenia. We are engaging with the Manitoba Schizophrenia Society (MSS), Sara Riel Inc. and the University of Winnipeg community as our knowledge users to develop an app customized with features such as a reminder system for clinic visits and medications adherence, symptom severity tracker and pre-programmed emergency and community health and social services contact information for Manitoba.
Experiential Learning and Global Citizenship in the 21st Century
Principal Applicant: Marc Kuly (Education)
Award $2,000
This symposium will connect and communicate diverse perspectives on developing global citizens through experiential learning abroad. Researchers, scholars, educators, and students from the fields of Education and Sociology will examine and discuss each other's perspectives on and experiences with the ideas and practices associated with promoting global citizenship. Based on their common experiences with organizing and participating in learning in the global South, participants offer attendees an exploration of pedagogy, globalization, civil society, and cosmopolitanism along with the personal stories that emerge from these transformational learning experiences. This symposium builds on the interest, questions and insights developed during the Global Citizenship Teach-Ins held by Global College and the Experiential Learning Network during the 2013-2014 academic year.
Capacity Building for Equitable Partnerships in Global health Research: Reconsidering the Values Formation
Principal Applicant: Sandra Tomsons (Philosophy)
Award: $7,000
According to previous research, global health’s value framework is problematic. Southern epistemological, moral and political values are invisible in a Northern constructed bioethical paradigm. Justice principles (equality, equity, human rights, and social justice) require a South-North assessment and perhaps revisions. Our South-North research team is developing a South-North inter-philosophies dialogue (S-NIPDM) methodology to engage in this assessment. Constructing S-NIPDM and using it to determine the bioethical paradigm’s values content are the first steps to assessing the paradigm’s strengths and weaknesses and constructing a South-North paradigm.
2014
Caring for Difficult Knowledge: The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Focus
Principal Applicant: Angela Failler (Women's and Gender Studies)
Award: $6,000
This collaborative project of the University of Winnipeg’s Cultural Studies Research Group (CSRG) led by Dr. Angela Failler is designed to contribute new concepts and terms of ethical engagement for learning from histories of violence and conflict.
The project pays particular attention to the possibilities and limits of a human rights framework for grappling with “difficult knowledge” in the context of museums, curatorial practice, education, and research. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) serves as a catalyst and focal point for this project.
Impact of International Intergenerational Gender Alliances Countering Violence Against Women and GIrls in South Sudan and the DRC
Principal Applicant: Marilou McPhedran (Human Rights)
Award: $6,000
Based in the Institute for International Women's Rights - Global College, this project is oriented to concerns shared by community leaders in Manitoba's South Sudanese and Congolese diaspora communities. This project aims to strengthen leadership capacity and gender alliances within the Winnipeg diaspora communities of South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to raise awareness and implement harm prevention and reduction strategies for gender-based violence in those countries. The work includes participatory action research and capacity-building workshops, in support of the Girl Ambassadors for Peace project of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. The focus is on adapting the 'peace camp' model pioneered by Canadian Voice of Women for Peace for use in French and English.
Returning Pisim Finds her Miskanow to O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation
Principal Applicant: Doris Wolf (English)
Award: $4,000
Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow is a picture book published last year for young people, and tells a story about Kayasochi Kikawenow, a young Cree woman who lived in northern Manitoba in the late 17th Century. The book is based on a week in the life of thirteen year-old Pīsim, the fictional name that storyteller, William Dumas, chose for Kayasochi. This book incorporates archeology, maps, Cree wisdom and songs. It has already won awards and high praise for its educational and storytelling
excellence.
The grant provides support for events in O-Pipon-Na-Pwin Cree Nation (South Indian Lake, Thompson), the community with which Kayasochi Kikawenow and Pīsim Finds Her Miskanow is rooted. This fulfills the researchers’ objective to return the story to the community in which Kayasochi Kikawenow lived, honouring the elders who provided information for the book and educating young people about their cultural heritage.
The Autonomous Indigenous Intercultural University of Cauca Indigenous Regional Council (UAINN-CRIC): An Ethical Affirmation of Indigenous Values in a Globalized World
Principal Applicant: Gabriel Nemogá (Indigenous Studies)
Award: $6,000
This project focuses on the Indigenous Education programs of the UAIIN-CRIC in Colombia. The proposal addresses a unique experience in Indigenous education that has affirmed ethical principles, institutions and practices in the middle of a chronic armed conflict and governmental policies that emphasize the exploitation of nature. The experience of the UAIIN-CRIC can potentially further human responsibility in globalized world that is striving for participation, democracy and human security. In practice, the UAIIN process that building awareness about respecting Mother Earth and forming connections with other cultures is not only viable but necessary.
2011
"God Did Not Create Us To Be Slaves...": Renewal and Hope in the South Sudanese Community
Principal Applicant: Jane Barter Moulaison
Award: $2,200
The preliminary part of this project represents the applicants research area in feminist and liberation theology. Specifically, this project examined the manner in which the biblical narrative and idiom, together with indigenous culture and religious beliefs, became profound sources of hope for South Sudanese during the civil war from 1983-2005. The translation and publication of the hymns was achieved through the assistance of Mary Aluel Garang.
The second portion of this project is the development of a multi-disciplinary conference of researchers, politicians and policy analysts on the post-war situation in the Republic of South Sudan. The conference focused on two issues: women's human rights, and economic development in South Sudan.
Pisim Finds Her Miskanow
Principal Applicant: Mavis Reimer and Deborah Schnitzer
Award: $5,300
Starting in 2008, with the help of a SSHRC grant, the applicants have worked on developing a book for young people about the life of Kayasochi Kikawenow, a young Cree woman from northern Manitoba in the late 17th Century, and whose burual site was discovered in 1993. This book is intended as a prototype, the first in a series spanning the six seasons of the Rocky Cree year: fall, freeze-up, winter, spring, break-up, and summer. The intent is to root the picture books in the specific regional geography, climate, and culture of the Rocky Cree of northern Manitoba; to build on the anthropological and historical record of the life of Kayasochi Kikawenow; to develop an engaging account of the kinship relations, cultural activities, and material artifacts of the Rocky Cree that can be used in relation to the Aboriginal Perspective in the curriculum program being developed by the Manitoba Department of Education and Youth; and to tell the story in a mixture of English and Cree, using the ofrms of English sentences, but making key concepts available through their Cree terms.