Projects in Progress
Several nonconfrontational projects are in progress within the affirming and invitational approaches. Two are in the context of training Master of Social Work (MSW) practicum interns and three are in the areas of furthering the understanding of siinqee and siinqee solidarity.Siinqee Projects
Siinqee Pathways for Nation Building
A diasporic women’s group of community-engaged professionals and practitioners approached the Siinqee Institute requesting siinqee training sessions. Their broad goal is to seek siinqee pathways to nation building, and their specific objectives are to increase the number of women in leadership positions, to restore the power of siinqee in their communities, and to empower women by reclaiming women’s ways of knowing. Co-learning sessions are negotiated and scheduled for February 24, 2024. Look out for posts from these sessions.
International Women’s Day (IWD) 2024
A team of the Siinqee Institute is working on deepening the understanding of siinqee and siinqee solidarity. The notion of siinqee solidarity is a unique type of solidarity but this is not clear as solidarity is often signified in the normative way. Siinqee solidarity differs in that it interweaves both calling out and calling in and this can lead to confusion if the dominant and siinqee definitions are not adequately pulled apart. The team working on the celebration of IWD is organizing a webinar and several other activities for the day of March 8 and stories for each day of the month of March. Please look out for these posts.
MSW Practicum
Africentric Mental Health
Students identified a knowledge gap in the understanding of mental health and mental health intervention from the perspective of racialized African migrants. African migrants are likely to eschew mental health services and bounce back on their own because they don’t find mainstream intervention working for them. But what about those who may not be able to bounce back on their own? What can the helping professions learn from Africans who bounce back and make their interventions effective for those who may not?
The rich Indigenous knowledge they bring from Africa could be a great gift to the helping professions lacking other understandings of mental health and the interventions thereof. However, systemic injustices like anti-Black-Arican racism intersecting with anti-Indigenous and anti-migrant racism prevented them from learning a rich array of mental health interventions.
Eschewing opposition and confrontation, the students embarked on affirmational and invitational approaches. A project is underway to produce a series of podcasts on African Indigenous ways of understanding mental health and mental health intervention. This will be a great contribution to address the gap in mainstream professional mental health intervention.
Look out for these podcasts in the next few months.
Women’s Empowerment
Students also identified a knowledge gap in the empowerment of racialized women from Asia who came to Canada in the last ten years. Flung far away from the social and cultural resources of their homeland communities in Asia, the women felt loss of job security and status, and loss of communal and cultural support. Their loss was compounded by feelings of disempowerment as they also experienced intersections of anti-Asian racism and anti-migrant racism, impacting them deeply and eroding their sense of self-worth.
Students also observed that these women hang on to their tradition and cultural practices as a way of dealing with their losses and re-empowering themselves. They find that these women particularly enjoy wearing their traditional clothes and jewelry and cooking their cultural dishes. Together, all these indicate how body art, including wearing their cultural clothes and jewelry, are all quiet forms resisting the erasure of systemic violence and affirming their cultural roots. This also shows women’s subtle performance of the suppressed Indigenous knowledge they brought with them. Opting for the approach of affirmation and invitation, the project of producing a series of short videos is underway.
Look out for these in the coming few months.