Edmonton business owners Shani Gwin and Robert Jennings have joined together to create the pipikwan pêhtâkwan and FKA Design Bursary. The annual bursary, valued at $4,000, will be offered for the first time in the 2022 Fall term.

Gwin (Public Relations ’10) launched pipikwan pêhtâkwan in 2020 to fill a gap in representation that she witnessed in her professional career. “There aren’t a lot of Indigenous People – or marginalized communities – represented in communications,” she says.

That lack of representation, says Gwin, creates problems in the ways stories about marginalized communities are told. “A lot of the stories in the media, or even the narratives and stereotypes that were being shared about Indigenous People were quite harmful. They weren’t reflective of my experience growing up in my community with my family.”

The public relations company is “Indigenous owned, led and majority staffed by Indigenous People,” says Gwin, and exists to help amplify Indigenous voices and stories. Over the past two years, she has expanded from running the company herself to employing a team of 25.

Gwin partnered with Jennings, owner of marketing and communications agency FKA, to create the bursary when they both recognized the lack of diversity in the field and decided to do something about it.

Jennings started FKA in 2008, and has been steadily working to diversify his staffing. He says he recognizes that the issue can’t be solved solely at the hiring level, as the diversity needs to be present in the talent pool in order to actually make those hiring choices. “At an educational level, not enough people from different backgrounds are being encouraged to pursue certain careers.”

Jennings sees the bursary as a way to provide that encouragement, and to increase diversity in education. “It says to Indigenous People, ‘this is a career that you can pursue.’ If you’re not told that you can explore certain things, you may assume incorrectly that you cannot, because people or society haven’t told you that option is available to you.”

“We would love to keep contributing to see more diversity in post secondary, and also in our field. If there’s any way that we can lift our community up and support them on their journey to economic sovereignty, we will,” says Gwin.

By collaborating on the bursary, the two hope to be able to make a difference in the lives of individual student recipients, as well as the larger field of marketing and communications.