The Spoken Letters on this site were created by Vancouver Island University’s 4th-year students in the Bachelor of Social Work Programs’ Social Work with Indigenous Communities class (SOCW 421). These audiovisual reflections represent the student’s responses to reading the Report of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual people. (MMIWG 2SLGBTQQIA Executive Summary Final Report, June 2019). The class has published their works as part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.
The students first wrote an academic paper on the report. Subsequently, they were encouraged to ‘take off their academic hat’, to free their voice and allow themselves to respond from both the heart and mind. The oral components and visual imagery in their Spoken Letters supported this leap.
These heartfelt responses reflect students’ deep engagement in learning, sometimes for the first time, about the painful truths and legacies behind the violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people. The letters are also a manifestation of the students’ will to actively heed the Report’s Calls to Justice into their future work. I applaud the students for their courage to be vulnerable and their confidence to put this snapshot of their learning from a moment in time out to the public, in an effort to join others who are working to ensure the findings from the Report and the Calls to Justice are implemented.
About the Spoken Letters method
The “Spoken Letters” assignment, uses an inquiry-driven methodology designed to help students reflect on real-life events and show solidarity and support for survivors.
The method grew out of a workshop at VIU on the concept of the ‘non-disposable assignment’. The process encourages students to represent knowledge in a variety of ways, encourages peer-access and review while building collaboration, community engagement and solidarity. I am grateful to the staff of Vancouver Island University’s Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning, for providing opportunities to explore the development of meaningful new pedagogical processes, such as this one. The 2019 Spoken Letters on the MMIWG-2SLGBTQQIA Report represent the second time VIU’s social work students have engaged in the process. -Finn
Past Spoken Letters:
2018 Cohort addressed their Spoken Letters to survivors of the Shubenacadie and other Residential Schools, in solidarity with members of the Mi‘kmawey Debert Cultural Centre. Those letters were made public on the eve of Orange Shirt Day 2018.
Department of Social Work, Vancouver Island University