My name is Ines Amigorena and I am entering my fourth and last year at McGill University. Having grown up in France, I moved to Montreal in January 2021 knowing next to nothing about and never having studied Indigenous populations of the Americas. Two and a half years later, I am pursuing a Joint Honours degree in History and Latin American Studies with an interest in Indigenous histories and historiographies across the continent as well as the development of school curricula addressing these topics. Thanks to the Arts Internship Office at McGill, I was able to find and complete an internship in relation to my field this summer at the More Than Words project.
I was drawn to More Than Words firstly because their work seemed to relate to a different project I am involved in developing educational material for Indigenous youth. When I applied for it, I saw this opportunity as a way to contribute to community and youth-oriented efforts and productions, which I didn't get to do in my year-round university studies. I looked forward to learning more about the stakes and challenges of working with Indigenous youth and to contribute to concrete efforts to help them and their communities. Working to develop educational tools and other usable materials was another learning objective I had going into the internship.
More Than Words is a five-year project launched in 2018 by the Participatory Cultures Lab which exists within McGill's Faculty of Education. The project works with youth groups in three Indigenous communities in Canada (Eskasoni in Nova Scotia, Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, and Treaty 6, the Traditional Homeland of the Métis in Saskatoon) to address sexual and gender-based violence against Indigenous youth through arts-based and youth-led survivor engagement. More concretely, this work implies developing arts-based educational tools and approaches as well as evaluation methods, and providing any support needed by the youth groups.
My responsibilities as an intern involved some research duties (about other initiatives similar to More Than Words and possibilities of funding), the development of educational tools easily usable for youth leaders and youth groups (namely, detailed activity plans), the production and posting of social media content introducing the work of More Than Work, and writing pieces for their annual newsletter. A lot of time was also spent in team meetings both within the team and with outside partners and consulting with my fellow interns and supervisors about our duties.
This last part was a noticeable highlight of my internship, it was extremely enriching for me to meet new people both professionally and personally. The office where More Than Words and the PCL are based is an extremely welcoming, warm, considerate, and kind working environment. I thoroughly enjoyed coming there everyday to work, existing in this space, and being in the company of everyone working there. Another important highlight of my time at More Than Words was having the opportunity to complete a task from beginning to end. Whether it was a report on research or an educational tool, I felt like I was trusted to have liberty and leadership when it came to my own work.
As for challenges I encountered during this experience, I would underline, beyond climbing to the very top of Mount Royal four days a week, the adaptation curve of working in an office everyday, which could become monotonous at times. Another hardship came in the form of depending heavily on supervisors for guidelines, feedback, and approval of our work, as well as the occasional helpless feeling of having to start a task all over again or finding out you had gone the wrong direction with an assignment. I dealt with these challenges by reminding myself of the point and importance of the work I was contributing to and trying to trust in my own abilities to complete the work I was tasked with. I also found maintaining a healthy work-life balance in the animated Montréal summer months helped me maintain my motivation.
Within the context of my studies and time as a student at McGill, interning at More Than Words enabled me to further discover the Indigenous sphere at McGill, both by meeting people and learning about initiatives, entities, and efforts on campus. This experience also made me hopeful about my professional future, as it provided me with different examples of career paths and mentors in my field of interest and studies.
Lastly, I would like to thank Carol and Lloyd Darlington for their generous donation which made it possible for me to be compensated for my work in this often-underfunded field. It is very important that students are able to be compensated even for intern-level work, especially when it comes to non-profit and community-centered efforts. For making it possible for it to be my case, I am extremely grateful.
Thank you also to the AIO for this incredibly enriching opportunity and all their wonderful work they do.
