Interview with Matt Belhumeur
Common Ground interview, Marina Robb and Matt Belhumeur discuss:
- What does it mean to reclaim your own education?
- How do we move towards healing?
- What do we need to hear as the ‘colonialists’?
About Matt Belhumeur
Matt Belhumeur is a Cree Man from The Buffalo Lake Metis Settlement in Alberta, Canada. He is a single father to a beautiful daughter who is currently six years old. Matt is currently in his 4th year of college chasing a degree in Indigenous social work.
“I feel very honored to be apart of what I feel is the beginning of my people reclaiming their education. I believe that we are amid an especially important shift within our country as there are more and more of our people becoming educated. Together this will enable us to hold people accountable and create conversations around how to best dissemble those systems that are founded on colonisation and systemic racism.”
Matt is the indigenous liaison worker in an organisation that specialises in working together with children and youth. The goal there is to give the people the tools they need to help regulate their behaviours and work through the traumas that they may have faced in their lives. His programme specifically takes a relationship-based approach in helping the people heal. He includes those indigenous practices and utilises talking circles, fire teachings, land-based teachings, sweat lodge and other ceremony’s just to name a few. “This has been an exciting journey so far and I look forward to completing my education and beginning the next chapter in my life, wherever that might be I guess only creator knows.”