UNBC students travelling to New Zealand for indigenous cultural exchange

A UNBC student is days away from leaving for New Zealand as the first in a cross cultural indigenous exchange program with a Maori University.

Roxanne Umpherville says she is looking forward to learning about the Maori First Nation culture in New Zealand

“I’m a little nervous, I’m pretty excited. I have to try and not get too excited or I can’t sleep at night” she said with a laugh “But it’s fantastic and coming up very quickly.”

The First Nations Studies student leaves on September 8th and will be doing an internship at a Maori gathering place.

“And they have a really fantastic urban garden.” Roxanne said “It’s basically right in the core of Auckland, so they are starting to bring communities back together to the Marae(a traditional Maori gathering place) and back to their traditional ways of being a community.”

When asked about what she hopes to gain from this 99 day adventure; she says a “unique experience”

“It is a completely different country, it’s something where you are going into communities that you don’t have here, going to Maori communities and seeing how they are structured and how they are dealing with issues in their communities.”

First Nations Studies Assistant Professor Dr. Agnes Pawlowksa-Mainville says in the field experience is invaluable.

“It’s very hands on, Roxanne is literally going to get her hands dirty because she is doing food sovereignty and food security. So she’s going to work on farms, it’s about as grassroots as you can get.”

Pawlowksa-Mainville added that Roxanne will be building cultural bridges beyond the two educational institutions. She hopes this will be the beginning of a link between indigenous groups in New Zealand and in Northern BC as well as a larger flow of students between the two universities.

A second UNBC student, Mia Pupic will be departing for New Zealand in January. A Kiwi student should be coming north to UNBC that month as a part of the exchange.