My name is Chloe C. and I am a grade 11 student at Forest Lawn High School within the Calgary Board of Education.  I am Saulteaux, my community is Yellow Quill First Nation, in Saskatchewan (Treaty 4). My aspirations when I graduate high school is to become a psychiatrist. To keep up in my courses, I often work on my coursework in my free time. If I am not keeping up with my coursework, my family connects with each other by exploring Calgary together. We have been living in Calgary for seven months and we are still fairly new to Calgary. We like to go on walks to see the mountains and city skyline; drive to the movie theater; and we eat out at restaurants as a family often. I also like meditating, yoga, tarot reading, and crystals. I am a full-time student as of now so it is a complicated endeavor. Sadly, I don’t give back to my community often, but I look at the Forward Summit as a chance to give back to Indigenous youth.  

What participating in Forward Summit means to me is learning more about what Forward Summit has to offer and then applying it to not only my life, but hopefully applying it to other people’s lives. I want to use my unique and privileged experience to be a voice for less privileged Indigenous peoples. I want to use my experience with generational trauma and things of that nature as a voice to the world. I know, with the life I have led, I can give that speech and it would be an honor and monumental moment in my life to do so. 

What an equal, diverse, and inclusive Canada looks like to me is a world where other Indigenous peoples get to live a life similar or better than the life I now live. I grew up with my older sister, so I didn’t experience the life my neglectful mother offered me. I was able to have someone care about my education and my mental health as well as just my basic needs. I think this is what every Indigenous child deserves. A chance to be better than their past generation. A chance to heal the generational trauma countless Indigenous peoples experience. As well as not being judged for things they can’t control like their family, upbringing, and skin color.