Key points:
- We have raised 57% of our goal for the scholarship endowment
- The fundraising efforts are continuing and accelerating
- We are exploring options to expand the scholarship to include experiential and career training opportunities
- We hope the scholarship can act as a catalyst for conversations about equity, diversity, and reconciliation with Indigenous people and the geoscience industry
- We are extremely grateful to all of our donors so far!
We are halfway there!
This scholarship is a true grassroots effort. We have been working hard to cobble together corporate and individual support to raise funds for the $50,000 capital base for the scholarship. We have sent thousands of tweets (@theBNMSF), hundreds of emails, contacted dozens of companies and organizations, and we are very pleased to say that we are now officially over the halfway mark! With $28,690 raised, we are in fact 57% of the way there!
We are so grateful to all of our the donors who have committed support to the scholarship so far. We have had a great response from environmental and geoscience companies across BC, and the growing list of names demonstrates strong industry support for building equitable relationships with Indigenous people. Our donors so far include:
Platinum ($10,000 – $25,000):
- FortisBC. We are extremely pleased to have received a generous $10,000 commitment from FortisBC through their Community Investment Program
Gold ($5,000 – $9,999):
- Palmer. We are very grateful for Palmer’s generous support and the interest they have shown in continuing the discussion on equity, diversity, and reconciliation.
Silver ($1,000 – $4,999)
- Northwest Hydraulic Consultants (NHC)
- BGC Engineering
- Ecofish Research
- Hemmera
- Kerr Wood Leidal
- Triton Environmental
- An anonymous donor
Bronze ($100 – $999)
- Pearson Ecological
- Dunbar Dental Centre
- Numerous anonymous donors
We continue to be grateful to the Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia Foundation for their support, and we look forward to working with them to formalize the scholarship in the near future!
Media coverage
Amanda Graff, writer for the Aboriginal Miner, a section within The Prospector News, has written a very lovely tribute to Brian Nadjiwon and our efforts to create this scholarship. The article can be read in the May edition of The Prospector News, on page 8.
As the scholarship makes waves, we have been approached by a number of other media sources, and we hope to share more media coverage with you soon!
Taking the scholarship further
This scholarship will be a powerful tribute to Brian’s legacy, and a sincere gesture of support for Indigenous involvement in the geoscience workforce and industry. Not only have we encountered generous financial support from our donors, we have also found that there is a keen interest in going beyond the material gesture of financial support. We have repeatedly heard the question ‘but what more can we do?’.
The scholarship will help Indigenous students overcome financial barriers in the pursuit of a geoscience education, and we also hope that it will attract individuals to geoscience who might never have considered that educational pathway before. However, we also know that there is more to be done to achieve true equity and diversity within the geoscience workforce and to build meaningful, reciprocal, and authentic relationships with Indigenous people and communities. Based on the great conversations we have had with our donors, we hope to use this scholarship as a catalyst for more holistic approaches to bringing Indigenous people to geoscience and vice versa. We have had multiple exciting conversations with companies and organizations interested in creating work placements, co-op opportunities, internships, mentorships, or other experiential opportunities for award recipients and applicants, and we look forward to implementing these ideas once the scholarship has been formalized. We also hope that this scholarship can be a catalyst for industry-wide conversations about reconciliation and changing the culture and practice of geoscience to be more welcoming to Indigenous people, needs, and knowledge.
If you are interested in any of these conversations or in making a financial contribution to the initiative, please contact: leonora.king@kpu.ca.
