Indigenous

Five years of Working in Good Ways

Symposium highlights how UM flipped the script on working with community

5. Participants pose together outdoors during a community gathering and learning retreat.
Estimated Read Time:
5 minutes
The Working in Good Ways group celebrate the completion of year five of the program.
The Working in Good Ways group celebrate the completion of year five of the program.
Estimated Read Time:
5 minutes
By

Sue Wang

Good intentions are not enough to build respectful relationships with communities.

Over the past five years, Working in Good Ways (WIGW) has influenced how University of Manitoba (UM) faculty, researchers, staff and students approach teaching, research and partnerships with Indigenous communities.

Developed by Community Engaged Learning, the WIGW framework grew out of conversations with Anishinaabe /Ojibway, Ininew/Cree, Métis, Sayisi Dene, Kichwa, Mapuche and Maya partners across Manitoba, Belize, Ecuador and Chile. Organized around seven principles and five stages , WIGW encourages more relational, reciprocal and responsive ways of working with communities.

Since its release, the framework has been downloaded more than 2,500 times. What began as a resource for community engaged learning has expanded into research, teaching, professional development, self-advocacy and community engagement work across Canada.

“Not a checklist”: building relationships differently

For WIGW co-lead Anny Chen, the framework was never meant to function as a set rigid of rules.

“The guide is descriptive — sharing the general practice that the community wants — but you still have to go talk to the community that you're working with,” Chen explained.

For Chen, it’s less about prescribing a process and more about shifting responsibility.

“We have to try to work in ways that are better for community partners — rather than assuming that the way that the institution wants to work, or the way that we want to work, is like the only way to work.”

That approach is now shaping teaching and community engaged learning practices across UM.

Participants gather around a large map during a collaborative learning activity.
14. Students and community members pose together during a workshop visit.
16. Two participants stand beside a truck loaded with firewood during a winter land-based activity.
Left and centre: Students learn from Faculty of Architecture Elder-in-Residence Valdie Seymour-iban about his territory (2023). Group photo taken during a field trip to Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation (2024). Right: Anny Chen with community members.

In the Faculty of Architecture, Associate Professor Sarah Cooper applies WIGW principles in the Indigenous Planning Studio — a graduate course that partners with First Nations communities.

Before students enter community, they first learn about the Indian Act and the differences between on-reserve and off-reserve planning systems.

“One of the key ideas in WIGW is that it’s important for us to build our literacy about a community’s history and current context,” Cooper said.

For Cooper, preparing students beforehand is also about reducing the burden placed on community partners.

“That way, the community doesn’t have to teach these really basic things to every visitor.”

She believes the framework encourages practitioners to take responsibility for their own learning and role within partnerships.

“That way, the community doesn’t have to teach these really basic things to every visitor.”

Sarah Cooper, Associate Professor

Rethinking research and institutional systems

Five years later, the influence of WIGW is extending further and is now looking more closely at research.

The second phase of the initiative, Researching in Good Ways (RIGW), explores what happens when these principles move into university research structures and practices. The project is supported through a Strategic Initiatives Support Fund and by the Office of the Vice-President (Indigenous) and the Vice-President (Research and International).

Kathleen Wilson, Director of RIGW, says the original framework laid the foundation for this work.

“The framework has fundamentally shaped who I am, how I engage with community, and how I advocate for myself as an Indigenous person in the work,” Wilson said.

8. Group selfie during a community learning trip in Hawaiʻi.
Participants harvest crops together during a land-based learning activity.
10. Winter landscape viewed from a train window during travel to a northern community.
Since launching last fall, the Researching in Good Ways project has built connections from Churchill, Manitoba, to Honolulu, Hawai‘i, to urban Indigenous communities in Winnipeg. Left photo: Kathleen Wilson is second from the left in the back row.

Wilson sees much of RIGW as an extension of the relational approaches already present in WIGW, but acknowledges a growing emphasis on attribution, prioritization of community knowledge, and how relational accountability is understood and practiced in research.  

In one community conversation, a single conversation reshaped the project team’s entire approach to the project.

“The initial visit should be focused on visiting, plan for return.”

Instead of treating early visits as an opportunity to gather information, relationship-building needs to be centralized before conversations around data can even begin.

For the project team, moments like this demonstrate how community guidance shape not only research outcomes, but should inform the entire research process itself.

The framework has fundamentally shaped who I am, how I engage with community, and how I advocate for myself as an Indigenous person in the work.

Kathleen Wilson, Director of Research in Good Ways Project

A growing community of practice

For many people involved in WIGW, the five-year anniversary is less about celebrating a framework and more about rethinking how universities build relationships with communities.

Department of Architecture Associate Professor Lancelot Coar believes this kind of work begins by slowing down and listening.

“We always enter communities in the middle of a story,” Coar said. “We have to become good listeners to understand where we are and who we are with to even begin to know how we can help and connect in meaningful ways.”

Participants gather and share stories during a community discussion session.
5. Participants pose together outdoors during a community gathering and learning retreat.
6. Participants enjoy winter activities during an outdoor gathering in the snow.
From left to right: Elder Valdie Seymour reviewing student work with Kenora Chiefs Advisory (KCA) members; Shawn Bailey at the sharing circle; architecture students and Elder Valdie Seymour celebrating at KCA presentations; a lighthearted moment at KCA.

In projects developed with Shawn Bailey and the Kenora Chiefs Advisory in Treaty 3 territory, Coar and Bailey asked students to bring a gift that reflected their own story before entering community. Some baked bread from family recipes. Others crafted cups from Red River clay. Others shared songs connected to their own histories.

“It is a very powerful opening to the project,” Coar said.

For Coar, the gesture acknowledges the trust and openness communities offer when they invite students into their spaces and share their stories and knowledge.

“That is the first gift,” he said. “It only feels right to respond in kind in the way we can, to start the journey in a good way.”

For Chen, the anniversary also represents an opportunity for people to realize they are not alone in trying to work differently.

She says that is one of the reasons behind this year’s Working in Good Ways Symposium (link) — to create space for people who are rethinking their ways of working to connect with and support one another.

“I want people to feel like they are part of a bigger project, like there is a community of practice that they can reach out to and find support in."

 

I want people to feel like they are part of a bigger project, like there is a community of practice that they can reach out to and find support in.

Anny Chen, co-lead of Working in Good Ways

May 28, 2026 | 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. | UM Fort Garry campus
The Working in Good Ways Symposium

The symposium will explore how relational and community engaged approaches have shaped teaching, research and advocacy over the past five years. Participants will hear stories, reflections and examples of WIGW principles in practice, while also learning about the newly developed RIGW framework. Proceeds from the event will support the WIGW Community Initiatives Fund.

Registration is open until May 20.

Textile artwork depicting a forest landscape with trees, water and hills.

At UM, we are working together to advance reconciliation for transformative change, which is among the commitments you’ll find in MomentUM: Leading change together, the University of Manitoba’s 2024–2029 strategic plan.