The indigenous Centre at Humber hosted their Annual Indigenous Awards Gala on April 13, a ceremony recognizing the achievements and hard work of a few indigenous students.
Kara Neveau, an Indigenous student in the Community Development Program said that she was surprised at how fast four years went by.
“Especially after the pandemic, it feels amazing and I’m super excited to see how I can apply what I’ve learned to the community,” she said.
With Neveau taking the educational path that allows her to learn key traits to apply back into her community, she said it really goes a long way to furthering the Indigenous roots past just the Humber community.
“I’m Indigenous, so I will be working with other parts of the Indigenous community and I’m excited to find a way that I can bring it all back,” she said.
Where the event was held on campus – in the Humber Arboretum – which may a lot closer than many people would expect.
The Arboretum is located at the back of the North campus towards where all the gardens are, just past the student’s residence section. Its main building is made almost entirely out of glass that’s tucked away at the top of a small hill that overlooks the gardens and the open fields.
Since graduation is usually something that’s reserved for the warmer time of year or later in the fall, the decision to have the awards ceremony held there makes sense, according to Jason Seright, Humber’s Vice President of Inclusion and Belonging.
This was the first time that Humber has held the awards event in the Arboretum, he told Humber News.
“We’ve actually been planning this since last year. It was a year in advance, and even that far ahead, we still had to look at different spaces because since there are so many events going on a Humber, almost all the spaces were booked,” he said.
The arboretum space is not big those so those who attended the event were close together, with Seright, one of the speakers, wearing his multicolored Indigenous attire for the evening.
Humber’s President and CEO, Dr. Ann Marie Vaughan also was in attendance had a few words to share.
“You have faced systemic barriers, but you’ve beaten and triumphed through it all,” she said to the graduating class in her speech.
Marissa Groulx, Coordinator of Indigenous Student Success, who is in her first year at Humber said she was excited to be a part of the planning for this event, gave respect to the grounds the event was held on.
“It’s a way of honoring our ancestors because of our history, especially since Humber resides mainly on indigenous land,” she said.
This awards gala serves as lead-up to June Convocation events for many Humber students.
Aaron Critchley, a Social Service Worker student who was at the gala, said he would have missed the ceremony if he hadn’t decided to come back to school.
“It feels really good to be graduating. I graduated high school and spent a few years working factory jobs which was something I never really quite connected with,” he said.
“Social work was always something that I had an interest in doing, and one-day things just started lining up, and I decided it was the right time to go back to school, I wish I got it done sooner, but I’m happy I’m getting it done now,” he said.