For this project, we were given the assignment to do research on an issue surrounding indigenous people in Canada and do a design that will help raise awareness or address the problem. After reading the 94 Calls to Action, what stood out to me was how many indigenous people across Canada were lacking the essential needs and basics such as proper healthcare, food, housing, drinking water, etc. Initially, I wanted to do something that talked about the issues mentioned earlier. But after talking with other classmates and doing some thinking, I’ve realized that trying to tackle multiple subjects at once would be too difficult and overwhelming for me to handle. As a result, I’ve decided to narrow the issue down to water. I chose water because it is an essential part of human life. We use water to not only drink but also to bath and to cook and grow our crops. Yet, despite Canada having some of the largest freshwater sources, many indigenous communities still lack this essential need.

The Research

To begin any project, I had to do research. I learned about how the people living on the reserves are lacking the proper infrastructure, how past racist policies continues to carry on, children getting sick, how people are getting water from outside of their communities in water jugs, and how the boiling water advisories are preventing indigenous people to drink water. I took notes and saved the articles so I can go back and read them again. We were also given the chance to talk with students from the Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking program to get their feedbacks and what they thought.

The Design

The difficult part for this project was how I wanted the design to be executed. I knew early on that I want the design to target to non-indigenous Canadians and contain a strong message about the water crisis and have some sort of call to action. But throughout the thinking and sketching process, I was struggling to choose between making posters and guerrilla marketing. Posters are common but at times are overused while guerrilla marketing can be very effective but requires a lot of creativity. I leaned more towards guerrilla because it had the potential to drive a strong message but ultimately, I decided to do both. After some sketching and discussing with others, I chose a bathtub for guerrilla. The idea is that there is a bathtub out in an open place filled with dirty water and on the surface, there is a message saying “Would you drink this?”. Since the tub is out in the open, people will notice it and will check to see what it is. Not to mention, when the changes and rains, the dirty water will also change which can help make the message stronger.

For the posters, I decided to do a series of three. The posters contain a shocking image of the water situation and a header saying “Can you guess which country this is?”. And underneath, there are checkboxes and countries to choose from with Canada being in it. The idea is to create something similar to a quiz but also provide shock value to Canadians and make them realize that despite how fairly wealthy Canada is, we still have people living in Third World country conditions.

Final Thoughts

I’ll admit, this was a really tough project for me. Trying to raise awareness on a touchy subject while also being respectful isn’t easy. But also trying to think of creative ideas that work was also hard. There were times that I went back and forth between ideas and approaches and as a result, I felt like I put myself in a corner. While I’m not a 100% satisfied with the result, I did what I could. This project taught me to empathize and I hope I can do better next time. If I had to give myself a grade, it might be 7/10.