"Look again: I'm still Aboriginal"

April 25, 2010

"Look again: I'm still Aboriginal"

It was just a few weeks ago that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives came out with a study showing the disparity that Indigenous people continue to face in Canada when it comes to employment. While carrying out similar - if not identical jobs - Aboriginal people make, on average, 30 per cent less than non-aboriginals. It's a shocking number, and speaks volumes to the poverty that continues to plague Aboriginal communities across the country.

The latest piece we are featuring in our partnership with Work For All is pleasantly timely, then. As I am is a powerful, experimental documentary challenging how Aboriginal people are seen in the workplace. Directed by Algonquin filmmaker Nadia Myre, and based on a poem written by Mohawk writer Janet Marie Rogers, it both celebrates diversity of culture in the workplace, and pushes us to question how easy it is label colleagues as 'others' while all the while carrying out the same tasks and duties.

Work For All is an anti-racism initiative undertaken by the National Film Board and Human Resources and Development Services Canada. Over 10 weeks they are posting 5 new and 5 classic NFB short documentaries about issues around race and racism in the workplace. We're happy to be partnering with them on this initiative, and will be featuring a new W4A documentary here every Sunday for the rest of the campaign.