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The First Voices project helped Eliza Knockwood connect with other aboriginal and indigenous youth. Photo: Caley Baker

Eliza Knockwood is a young Mi'kmaq woman with a story to tell. Thanks to a Halifax-based program for aboriginal and indigenous youth that equipped Knockwood with a video camera, she now has an opportunity to do so.

Knockwood, 25, hopes that video taken at her Scotchfort Reservation just outside of Charlottetown will help the public gain "awareness of what the aboriginals and indigenous are faced with -- we have voices, we're human, we're equal."

She and the other participants in the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation's First Voices project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, are making a collaborative documentary focusing on stories from their communities. The group, which includes three Canadian First Nations' youth and three indigenous South American youth, all in their early twenties, has been travelling Atlantic Canada sharing footage and stories for the past two weeks.

The goal of the project was not to produce a group of documentary filmmakers, but to increase participants' pride in their communities, says Jennifer Sloot, executive director of the council, an organization that aims to educate Atlantic Canadians about issues including international development and social justice. She wanted to create a project that would target aboriginal youth, and thought the idea of making a film would excite young people and prompt them to become involved.

Sloot hoped the participants' footage would help combat the negative stereotypes of aboriginal youth that are prominent in the media, and "show the public that there are really important and positive things coming out of aboriginal communities," she says.

The group's speaking tour took them to Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, and to Halifax's Dalhousie University and the Mi'kmaq Native Friendship Centre. Each participant described his or her community and showed some raw footage from the five one-hour tapes they recorded during the past few months.

First Nations' perspective

Cathy Martin, a filmmaker and member of the Mi'kmaq Millbrook First Nation near Truro, is the group's mentor. She offered technical expertise and storytelling advice when the Canadian youth first gathered in Halifax for three days of training last August.

"I talked about making films and creating your vision, and telling your story and telling it from your perspective, from a First Nations' perspective."

The South American youth, two from Guatemala and one from Chile, were trained at home.

On Jan. 17 in Halifax, the young people all gathered together for the first time, to show each other their footage and begin working on editing their material, with the help of Martin and editor Ariel Nasr at the Centre for Art Tapes.

Of her own footage, which includes scenes of her seven-year-old daughter Jade, and her mother carrying out a traditional smudging ceremony, Knockwood says: "I just kind of let my heart guide my way and when I saw something intriguing, I just picked up the camera and filmed it."

Martin expects the 30 to 40 minute film, which will be narrated by the participants themselves, to be completed by the end of March. The finished documentary will then be shown in Guatemala, Chile and throughout Atlantic Canada, including Halifax.

Common ground

Knockwood notes that filmmaking is complementary to the aboriginal oral tradition of storytelling, and provides a new method of preserving history and stories.

Given the geographical distance between the participants' homes, and the freedom they had to record what they thought was important, the "way (their stories) all fit together like a big jigsaw puzzle is amazing," Sloot says.

Common themes that emerged among the participants' clips included respect for nature in their communities, and the struggle to prevent the loss of their aboriginal and indigenous languages, land and traditions.

Knockwood agrees that the number of similarities among the participants' stories came as a surprise.

"I didn't feel so alone or inadequate anymore. I saw that there are other people in another part of the world that are feeling, and going through, the same emotions and challenges that I'm faced with."

The relationships that have developed between the participants are an indication of the project's success, says Sloot. "The real bonds that have formed among these six, it's really inspirational...I wouldn't be surprised if they kept in touch forever."

Knockwood says she'll continue to use the storytelling and filmmaking skills she has developed through the project to document life on her reserve. Martin says that's exactly the outcome she wanted the First Voices project to have.

"My hope is to have storytellers continue the tradition of storytelling, which means telling stories of today and bringing them into the future, and bringing the past into the future as well."