What we do
At Building Bridges, we aim to bridge the knowledge gap about Indigenous history through education, in order to mobilize non-Indigenous youth to take action through social entrepreneurship. We hope to foster the creation of proactive and educated youth allies as well as to create platforms to bridge the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals. Youth will also develop soft and social entrepreneurial skills through education, research and social engagement.
​
Our approach encourages different ways of teaching and interacting with students, as it incorporates transformative education, community engaged learning and bottom up approaches as we hope to take part in decolonizing forms of traditional classroom education.
We offer a 12 weeks program that focuses on students grade 10-11, and is divided in 4 phases : Awareness and Education, Research and Skill development, Project development, and a Final conference.
Building Bridges is an Enactus UBC project and a winner of the HSBC Entrepreneurship Project Accelerator.
Founded by Eylul Kara and Ghita Aqallal, BB stemmed from their own interest in First Nations and Reconciliation in Canada; both of them coming from different regions in the world dealing differently with native communities and colonization. In learning about the land they came to, they noticed a visible gap in education and awareness in BC amongst communities, resulting in some of the younger generations failing to identify with and understand the local history and present lives of the land and its people.
The notion of allyship is placed at the center of the program, as BB hopes to position itself as an ally organization while encouraging ally ship amongst younger generations. We believe allyship is necessary in building a sustainable peaceful future, as it is through it that individuals understand their positionality and role within the system; and the actions that can be taken to make effective change.
