Na esḵw’úḵw’ulh sḵwálwen cht
Feeling of Purpose
We heard you share about wanting to have education, employment and life skills opportunities throughout every stage of your life. For yourself, your families, and your community. You shared about our need to know who we are as Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people and the skills and strengths that are within each of our family lines.
A Feeling of Purpose refers to our overarching life direction, our understanding and conviction about our role in our communities. The themes for improving our feeling of purpose are creating opportunities for meaningful livelihoods, promoting and upholding our people’s initiatives and passions, connecting our people to Sḵwx̱wú7mesh history, and offering learning opportunities throughout life. Within a generation all Sḵwx̱wú7mesh People will experience a Feeling of Purpose through having a deep understanding of who we are as Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Stélmexw. This understanding will guide our roles, professions and overarching life direction.
The feeling of purpose relates to our values of Nexwniw̓ and Snew̓ íyelh through learning from our family and ancestors and why we do what we do. Nexwniw̓ and Snew̓ íyelh can support a strong understanding of our purpose in our community and abroad.
“We need to ensure that people and families all feel like they belong to the Nation. That individuals and families have a sense of purpose, power, and connection to people and community.”
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“More education, training, employment opportunities and mentorship of Nation members to support this work, within the Nation and outside, but carrying Squamish perspective and knowledge.”
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“Create an area for entrepreneurs, in particular start ups, to physically work.”
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“Supporting entrepreneurial growth and development for present and future opportunities within the Nation and also with Nation partners. Ensuring the youth have access to learning about starting and owning a business in school, summer programs, training and capacity building, etc. anything and everything that promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and work collaboratively with the many supports out there for them.”
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“To maximize Squamish participation in the economy, by entering the business arena in all sectors to create employment, increase capacity Development and create general wealth for the communities.”
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“Education has always been important for our nation and employment opportunities. Health and wellness resources, engagement for our membership would be amazing as well.”
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“More accessible space eg: Language and Culture learning space. More resources that are accessible such as books, online resources, video recordings. Diversified programming and services outside of work days. Focus on family learning together - multi-generational learning.”
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“Make it available for all our people a library where we can sit and learn all ages welcome!”
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“Programs that support our youth and parents need to be prioritized so the next generation can live up to their true potential in Education, Employment and Relationships.”
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“Provide tutoring, financial support for students needs.”
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“Financial support for academic and non-academic education for any job that a person wants to train for. Financial support for starting a business. Support for changing jobs/careers later in life too.”
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“A location dedicated to teaching, learning and growing Squamish knowledge keepers. Squamish knowledge should be acknowledged and ‘paid’ accordingly when hiring. Our organization prioritizes education over Squamish knowledge, we can have a balance of both but Squamish knowledge isn’t even considered when hiring and determining pay rates.”
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“To have annual gatherings to share healing, celebrate one another with our Chief and Council and elders and community members and our families”
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“Sharing of positive history of our community members and contributions to our Nation. Positive role models are a plus for our future up and coming leaders.”
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“I want our children to feel proud of who they are”
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“Having a Squamish history or story about our culture , or making a digital version that can give snapshots of our culture. More encouragement to practice culture and language , not so much worry about keeping with the old ways.”
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“To be able to know who are People are, we are increasing in Numbers and different family dynamics, there needs to be a Member Recognition Day...(Family Tree Day) for intro to new families in our Community!”
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“Art installations or welcome figures at village entrances”
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“more native art in Squamish for public to see (downtown and garabaldi village)”
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“Each Nation member should be provided a Cultural and Language package written and or virtual, each Nation member should be provided a Family Tree with ancestral histories”
Some of our people's ideas:
