Students

Wenona John­ny is from the Tex­elc First Nation, born and raised in the inte­ri­or region.  She is a sec­ond year Nurs­ing stu­dent in the bach­e­lor of sci­ence in nurs­ing pro­gram at TRU. She has pre­vi­ous­ly worked in the health Care field work­ing with the First Nations com­mu­ni­ties in and around Williams Lake for the last eight years. It was work­ing with­in these com­mu­ni­ties that she became increas­ing­ly aware of the grow­ing gaps in health care serves to rur­al and remote First Nations com­mu­ni­ties and enticed her to pur­sue a career in nurs­ing. I am a moth­er to two hand­some boys and it is them that dri­ve me to thrive with­in my life and my future. I look for­ward to learn­ing more about gen­er­at­ing health care infor­ma­tion so that it bet­ters serves our Nations.

Dawn Tis­dale RN, BSN, MSN in progress is of Mi’kmaq and Euro­pean ances­try. Dawn start­ed  nurs­ing in med­ical and pal­lia­tive care before mov­ing into nurs­ing pol­i­cy and advo­ca­cy with a  spe­cif­ic focus on Indige­nous health and nurs­ing ini­tia­tives. Dawn’s advo­ca­cy efforts have  been in Indige­nous nurs­ing lead­er­ship and adopt­ing cul­tur­al safe­ty with­in health care sys­tems  and nurs­ing edu­ca­tion. Dawn’s schol­ar­ship is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing cul­tur­al­ly safe health care  to address anti-Indige­nous racism and pro­mot­ing the rights of Indige­nous-led health care.

Rose Mel­nyk is a proud mem­ber of  St’uxwtéws te Secwépemc and has resided in Secwepemcul’ecw her entire life. Rose has prac­ticed as a reg­is­tered nurse since 2008, and since 2015 has worked as an Abo­rig­i­nal Health Prac­tice Lead in Inte­ri­or Health. She is cur­rent­ly enrolled in the Mas­ter of Nurs­ing pro­gram at TRU and is pas­sion­ate about advanc­ing health equi­ty for Indige­nous per­sons, fam­i­lies, and communities.

Amy Mawd­s­ley is White (Irish, Scot­tish, Russ­ian and Eng­lish) and Cree on her mother’s side. She lives on the unced­ed, ances­tral ter­ri­to­ries of the Tsleil-Wau­tuth, Squamish and Musqueam Nations. She has been priv­i­leged to fin­ish a Mas­ters in Pub­lic Health in which she focused on ethics, com­mu­ni­ty-based approach­es, and social deter­mi­nants of health. Her great­est learn­ings have been from the women, Elders and chil­dren in her life. Over the last sev­er­al years, she is grate­ful to have worked with com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions in Indige­nous health.  Cur­rent­ly, she is a Research Assis­tant with the Nurs­ing the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Way project. She is hum­bled by this work and am always learn­ing. She is pas­sion­ate about sup­port­ing mean­ing­ful change towards a more just, healthy, anti-racist, respect­ful and  con­nect­ed future.

Christi­na Chakanyu­ka was born and raised on Dene/Cree ter­ri­to­ry in the South Slave (Treaty 8) Region of the North­west Ter­ri­to­ries. She has strong fam­i­ly ties to both her father’s Scot­tish rela­tions as well as her mother’s British, Dene, and Cree-Métis rela­tions. She start­ed her career as a Reg­is­tered Nurse in her home com­mu­ni­ty of Fort Smith before mov­ing to Vic­to­ria, BC via Yel­lowknife, NT. She is now a part-time Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor and full-time PhD stu­dent in the School of Nurs­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vic­to­ria. She is thank­ful to the Indige­nous nurse matri­archs who have bush­whacked and cleared a path in the snow for Indige­nous world­views, and ways of know­ing, doing, and being to be rec­og­nized in the nurs­ing acad­e­my. As an“Indigenist” nurse edu­ca­tor and bud­ding schol­ar, she is com­mit­ted to work­ing col­lec­tive­ly with Indige­nous peo­ple and allies in research-activism that aligns with and guid­ed by the core ten­ants of anti-oppres­sion and anti-racism. In her future research, she intends to embody rela­tion­al account­abil­i­ty to self, to oth­ers, to com­mu­ni­ty, and to cre­ation through decol­o­niz­ing efforts with­in the nurs­ing academy.