SP0239: N'we Jinan Festival and Youth Conference

One of the most impactful things that we can do as recruiters and outreach associates, is to get Indigenous youth on the McGill campus. Students need to see themselves here before they will be comfortable to apply here. This project will be hosting select streams on the McGill campus in classic university classrooms like ARTS150. Using McGill's beautiful campus and energy, we hope that this space will inspire Indigenous youth and plant a seed in them about this space, and perhaps coming here as a student. In addition to the inspiration produced by being on McGill campus, we also hope that this project will remove the "unknownness" of McGill for Indigenous students. In giving them the opportunity to build familiarity with the campus and creating a space on campus wherein they are comfortable, we hope that McGill is less daunting and more inviting.

The N'we Jinan Festival and Youth Conference will be bringing over 350 Indigenous students from over 30 First Nations across Canada to Montreal. This is one of the most comprehensive and efficient opportunties that McGill has had to host Indigenous students on campus and to give them an experience they will not forget. This project is innovative in that is addresses a social sustainability problem that is unique to McGill and the academic institutional setting, and does so by partnering with external commnity partners to specifically serve youth and prospective students. McGill's enrolment services currently hosts opportunities for students to visit campus, i.e. Open House, Summer Academy, and daily tours at the welcome centre. However, these opportunties are often geared toward local, affluent schools and neighbourhoods. Perhaps the most alike initiative to the N'we Jinan Festival and Youth Conference is "My Day @ McGill", which is also hosted by our unit, Branches. However, in the specific context of Indigenous highschool students who could potentially be ready to apply and go to school here, there has yet to be an event like this.

Another aspect of this project that facilitates relationship building between McGill and Indigenous communities, is the interaction between McGill Student Volunteers and the participating youth. McGill students will be recruited to volunteer at the conference in various capacities - giving them the chance to interact with the younger students, and to act as "ambassadors" of McGill. This project has many levels to it wherein McGill can build more sustainable partnerships and relationships with Indigenous students and community - thereby influencing the number of
applicants and accepted Indigenous students at McGill.