A portion of last week was entering a “Labyrinth” (as one my team members Rebecca so accurately describes it) researching everything I could about water. Specifically, why do we still have 57 long-term water boiling advisories within Indigenous Communities across Canada? I chose to write about this topic for our second assignment and attempted to make sense of why can't "we" solve this? How is this even possible, within Canada and in 2021?
It's not 1921!
Through my research journey I came across:
Water Warriors, a short film documenting how a community of indigenous and non-indigenous families united in New Brunswick, Canada to protect their water and way of life against a US energy company (VMM, 2019). A concerned resident doing her own research and “campaigning” was contacted by an Environmental group, and invited to join a call, surprised to discover there were thirty other groups within New Brunswick sharing her same concerns. She had no idea others “felt the same way” (VVM, 2019).
Herein lies the lesson. (excerpt from my Op/Ed)
A "group of people" who share a concern, a complex problem, are passionate and share a common goal to end water advisories across Canada exists today. What we are missing is connecting this “group of people” to share knowledge, expertise and leverage what theorists such as Wenger et. al, describe as a “Community of Practice” (2002, pg. 4). (excerpt from my Op/Ed)
I cried watching Water Warriors, not because it was sad, but because it provided me with hope...what is truly possible when "people" come together through a Community of Practice.
If you have time, I encourage you watch Water Warriors | POV | PBS short 21 minute impactful film and see what connections you make that can support change and help our CoP with our journey “In Pursuit of Pipeline Perspectives”?
Until next week!
Melanie
P.S. The core members of our team: Chris, Morningstar and Rebecca – super creative and supportive team members, it is they (during one of our team meetings) who encouraged me to write about one of my passions – water. Thank you.