MEET Mom & Founder of the Indigenous Parent’s Community, Kelly Kristin
KELLY KRISTIN (she/her)
Mom, Founder/Executive Director of the Indigenous Parent’s Community (a not-for-profit organization), Director of Marketing and Communications, Blogger, Aspiring Speaker, Student/Advocate, and Changemaker
Kelly is a proud Cree woman from Treaty No. 1 Territory (Winnipeg, Manitoba.)
with a degree in Marketing from the Bachelor of Business Administration Program at the University of Winnipeg. She holds a Digital Marketing Certification in Digital Communication and Media from Jelly Academy and served as the Indigenous Student Director of the Indigenous Student Advisory Circle at the University of Winnipeg.
I contribute all of my success to her daughter, who’s completely changed my life.
Kelly’s success starts with enrolling at the University of Winnipeg, the summer her daughter was born and the long journey to graduating from University as a parent began.
Upon graduation, her multi-year journey from retail cashier clerk through to internships and part-time jobs while being a full-time mom AND part-time student came to an end with a new title: Director of Marketing Communications for an Indigenous company.
Kelly is the founder/Executive Director of the Indigenous Parents Community who advocates for Universities to be more inclusive places for Indigenous parents enrolled in higher education and providing support to Indigenous Student-Parents. “The Indigenous Parents Community is here to aid indigenous parents in overcoming their personal barriers to achieve a higher education of their own definition”
“I’m so passionate about what I do from eight years as a student watching parents try and then fail and try and fail. And it's not even their fault. It really isn't. They really want it, but they can't get it because there are so many barriers in their way.”
- Kelly Kristin, Indigenous Parents Community
MORE ABOUT KELLY
Kelly is originally from the Shamattawa (ᑭᓭᒫᑖᐘ, kisêmâtâwa) First Nation - a fly-in community in Northern Manitoba. Kelly’s biological mother is a survivor of the residential school system, and can be challenging at times to talk about. Her story holds multiple layers of trauma, one of them being separated from her siblings and being adopted out separately as “part of the system”. Kelly shares that she is grateful to her adopted family, and upset by the traumatic break she experienced.
“I started the Indigenous Parents Community to remove those barriers and be the voice, be the rebel, and stand up. This is what I am meant to do for the rest of my life. Helping others is what I am meant to do…to help build the bridges and help people cross them." - Kelly Kristin
The need for something like the Indigenous Parents Community was clear to Kelly during her eight-year journey through University. While experiencing frustrating barriers at the University of Winnipeg, Kelly took note of all of what she and other students like her were experiencing. Every time she witnessed something that struck her as not right; things like people having to leave their pursuit of education because they’ve aged out of scholarship eligibility, struggling to stay in class because they have children at home, and the colonial barriers and structures active in Universities nationwide.
From this place, she founded the Indigenous Parents Community to fill the need and advocate for a more inclusive educational environment for Indigenous parents enrolled in any higher education stream to help support finishing their education. The alternative being to leave University because of financial barriers with a system designed and slanted toward the average 18-year-old, and not the 32-year-old parent returning to school.
Her work started moving to action from a quiet and soft voice in the institution, leading to invitations to sit at influential tables with the Deans and President of the University of Winnipeg. With her degree completed, her focus shifted to making her voice louder in order to create the changes needed to help Indigenous parents through education.
“I'm not scared of saying, no. I'm not scared of being labeled a troublemaker or a rebel. I'm not scared of pissing someone off, and a lot of people are because they have things on the line where they can't afford to do that. I am in a space where I have a massive safety net behind me. I have a mother who's been my advocate my entire life, and I got that fire from her. I have that love for victory, and I want to use that. I want to be that support for someone else. I just want to use my privilege to help other people.” - Kelly Kristin
As an incorporated not-for-profit, the Indigenous Parents Community is starting to move to grassroots action, advocating with education administrators and power brokers and exploring grants to help support and grow the community. Kelly and the Indigenous Parents Community are well on their way. This is her passion.
Kelly shares: “When I began, I was working two different sales jobs and I was lost for the longest time, absolutely lost. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know what I was.” It was a job recruiter whose insistence that Kely should apply for a marketing and communications coordinator with an Indigenous community searching for someone and the breadth of people and communities she could help. “Ever since that day, I have been working towards this place I am in.” Another source of Kelly’s inspiration was Nicole McLaren, the founder of Raven Reads Books Ltd., who gave her an opportunity as a marketing intern. McLaren believed in Kelly and was a part of planting the seeds for Kelly’s entrepreneurial ambitions.
Kelly's Impact Statement
Kelly reminds us that universities and post-secondary institutions are colonial institutions designed for a target market. The Indigenous Parents Community intends to create action and decolonize these spaces, creating an inclusive space for Indigenous parents to thrive and complete their education, whatever that education is, unleashing generations of untapped talent into the world. “The Indigenous Parents Community is here to aid indigenous parents in overcoming their personal barriers to achieve a higher education of their own definition.”
When Kelly was writing the vision statement for The Indigenous Parents Community she imagined sitting in the audience, watching people graduate. She imagined watching them get jobs, buying a house, supporting their families and saying “look what I did”, and being excited.
She reminds us: “My mom raised me to pay it forward. I want to do more. I want to pay it forward and honour what my mom did for me.
““Someone told me about The University College of the North, which is designed to address these barriers, and I got so angry, I had to excuse myself to go cry. Why couldn't there be more of that here? It’s a system designed for success, and it’s the only one. We would see an amazing workforce come in. There is untapped talent in these parents that have the drive, passion and the need to want to be there. It remains untapped because there are so many barriers, and they just don't have the energy because they’re traumatized by everything that's happened to them….we really need to do something about it.” - Kelly Kristin
What's Next?
With long-term, structural changes in mind, the Indigenous Parents Community knows there is more to be done. On top of accessibility, Kelly also aims to make education safe for Indigenous women and parents who face increased threats to their safety and well-being. Indigenous women like Kelly are living and walking representations of the ongoing MMIWG2S (Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls and 2 Spirited people) issue in Canada that continues to plague Indigenous communities.
Indigenous women and mothers are at an increased risk of violence, often forced to pursue education options outside of standard business hours, which further increases this risk. Indigenous Parents Community hopes to help Indigenous women and mothers have more inclusive access to education, more support through the process, and more safety in their lives.
Kelly is a powerhouse. Full stop. Her commitment to address injustices and inequalities facing Indigenous peoples,especially Indigenous parents, due to colonization is inspiring. It is leaders like Kelly that are making the world a better place. - Vanessa Lesperance, LIFT Circle Lead
The LIFTing Your Leadership program brings together a cohort of 12 entrepreneurs for a combination of business development activities and relational resources co-created by The Indigenous LIFT Collective and co-facilitated by guest Indigenous Aunties bi-weekly.
These stories have been crafted in co-creation with the entrepreneur via the Amplify program which provides a combination of listening sessions and story coaching to create a digital profile for each cohort member. The Amplify portion of the project ensures Indigenous peoples and their perspectives are celebrated, seen and heard.
reGEN media will be creating a six-minute documentary to showcase hope, possibility, and the potential of collaborative partnerships to contribute towards Economic Reconciliation.
The co-creation of this impact initiative in its entirety is supported and made possible with our funding partners, Sunshine Coast Insurance Services Inc. and the Sunshine Coast Credit Union with the support of the Co-operators Advisor Community Fund. The Co-operators Advisor Community Fund supplements Financial Advisors’ donations to their community to help address unmet social, economic, and environmental needs, and build resilient communities for Canadians.
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