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The Pe-kī-wē-win project, focusing on the Sixties Scoop, is taking advantage of innovation and technology to create an online interactive platform as a tool for adoptees and survivors using a Geographical Information System (GIS).
Professor Raven Sinclair, who is heading the five-year project at the University of Regina, connected with Colleen Cardinal, director of the National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network (NISCWN), as part of the project’s community outreach. Ms. Cardinal had conceived the idea of creating a web-based map that can track Indigenous adoptee diaspora worldwide.
As a key collaborator on Dr. Sinclair’s research project, Ms. Cardinal attended two Indigenous GIS training sessions through the University of British Columbia’s Firelight Group.
The vision, explains Dr. Sinclair, is that survivors of the Sixties Scoop can trace their movement, tell their stories and connect with others. The platform, which is set to launch in December, will illustrate the global displacement of Canadian Indigenous children throughout the 1960s to the 1990s.
Individuals will be able to create their own profile and document their communities, uploading short videos or links. People searching for their roots can add as much information as they have. This could even provide a platform for families to reconnect, notes Dr. Sinclair. “Visually it’s a really exciting venture; and in terms of technology, it’s cutting-edge use of GIS technology to provide information.”
The map will be located on the website of the Sixties Scoop Network and is funded by the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute of Indigenous Health and private donations.
Produced by Randall Anthony Communications. The Globe’s Editorial Department was not involved in its creation.