-: When I joined BCG and started traveling around Canada,
and had the chance to spend some time
in northern remote First Nations communities,
I was really surprised that schools there struggled
to recruit teachers,
and when they were able to recruit teachers,
they struggled to retain them
even through a full school year.
I saw classrooms that had no teachers at all.
And in a country like Canada, this didn't seem acceptable.
So a group of volunteers, some from BCG,
some from other companies, some from other sectors,
got together and started meeting to discuss
if there's anything a group of young Canadians could do
to impact education in the North
through teacher recruitment and retention.
Teach for Canada is a nonprofit organization
that works with northern First Nations communities
to recruit, train, and support committed teachers.
We do this because Canadian education overall
is very high quality, but the system has deep inequality.
And in particular, northern isolated indigenous communities
have a lower graduation rates,
lower student achievement outcomes,
and even lower student attendance and engagement in school.
Our theory of change is that committed teachers
who are well recruited, well trained, and well supported
can make a big impact on student outcomes in the North.
And six years later, we've recruited over 300 teachers,
they've impacted over 5,000 students,
and the program is still going strong
and growing into more provinces and more communities today.
One of the biggest learnings I had when founding a charity
and launching Teach for Canada was that you really need
to take the time to listen and learn
from the people that you are trying to serve.
I am not indigenous.
I don't come from a northern remote community.
And one of the best things that I did
when we started this organization
was we spent two years listening and learning.
We wanted to launch it in 2012,
but we didn't feel we had the information, the knowledge,
the people, or the deep understanding of the challenges
that we would need to launch the organization.
When you are working with a community
that is historically marginalized,
historically disadvantaged, and you come in
with what you think might be some sort of helpful solution,
there will be pushback.
And you need to always have a huge dose of humility
and a huge dose of respect towards the people
that you are working with and the partners on the ground.
And to make this all work, for DEI to work,
for charities to work effectively, it takes both sides,
but it especially takes the side that's coming
from the dominant narrative to be humble, respectful,
and to spend a huge amount of time listening and learning.
For hundreds of years,
indigenous peoples have faced systemic discrimination,
systemic marginalization, an underfunded education system,
an underfunded health system, and a whole other litany
of challenges facing their communities.
And it is incumbent upon people like me,
a non-indigenous person, but who cares,
governments, businesses, non-profits,
it's incumbent on all of us in Canada to do what we can
in a humble and respectful way
to support indigenous communities.
And I plan to do so for the rest of my career.