Interaction Design |

Waniskâw

Nodin Cutfeet

The Problem:
Life in Canada’s rural Indigenous communities doesn’t offer many career opportunities and can be very boring for its youth, and the lack of quality internet speeds doesn’t help either; luckily boredom is just a synonym for having untapped creative potential.

Waniskâw aims to provide Indigenous youth with:

A voice to represent their unique identities

A creative and social outlet to replace their boredom

A better idea of where their passions lie

Skills directly related to multiple career paths

Workstation:
Waniskâw provides a free and comfortable work environment for those who don’t have a computer at home or don’t feel able to focus at home.
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These workstations provide all the essentials, and are illuminated using recycled LCD TV back panels, creating lighting similar to daylight; a major bonus up north where the sun sets before school is done for the day.
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The youth are able to make the space feel like their own by drawing and sticking things to the walls. To protect the space from actual abuse, these youth can access indoor security footage, putting the core stakeholders in charge of the space.

Tutorials:
‍Indigenous youth are encouraged to find their niche along the spectrum between the visually creative and the systematically creative. Waniskâw’s tutorials are designed to flow into one another, allowing the learner to follow their unique desired learning path while discovering new interests through experimenting with new skills. These youth can share their knowledge with each other by creating new tutorials, lifting the Waniskâw community as a whole.