To celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on June 21, we’re highlighting Zakk Parisien, student archivist with the WCH Archives, and the archival work he’s been doing with Ganawishkadawe Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health.
Though he is a Toronto native, Zakk is currently studying History at Queen’s University as he hopes to become an Indigenous historian or archaeologist. His family has roots with both Algonquin and Métis heritage in Ontario and he feels it’s refreshing to work at WCH in an environment where that heritage is acknowledged and celebrated.
Zakk’s current project is to archive the existing Ganawishkadawe Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health website and all of its information. To supplement this project, he’d also like to digitize and archive photos of the members and events associated with the CWP-IH from the last few years. While most of his work is task-oriented, Zakk appreciates that parts of his work that require him to be the go-between for the CWP-IH and the archives as they determine the importance of Indigenous archive material.
It’s important to archive Indigenous-created material as much of the collective history of Indigenous people has either been created by outside parties, or has been unfortunately destroyed and/or erased. This project is a great example of how Indigenous programs for Indigenous peoples exist, and have massive impacts on those surrounding them.
“The work at the Centre is quite ground-breaking and archiving it is an important step in preserving it – and demonstrating what a public hospital is capable of when they build capacity for reconciliation and health equity. This partnership project also really captures our spirit of collaboration at WCH and commitment to honoring the past while moving forward together”.
Telena Shena, GCWP-IH
The archiving of the website, photos, and other various materials represents the fact that the WCH is heavily involved with Indigenous healthcare, and understands that the work being done by the Centre is valuable to the story of the hospital.
Archiving the innovative and cultural work of the GCWP-IH is one of the ways WCH celebrates and recognizes the history and diversity of Indigenous nations and communities for National Indigenous Peoples’ Day. All the contents of Zakk’s project will be available by request through the WCH Archives later this year.
A special thank you as well to the Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations
(YCWHO), who made this summer student project possible thanks to their generous grant
funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage.