As an activist and historian vocal on Indigenous rights, History PhD student Lucy Vorobej works to raise consciousness of how historical negative stereotypes and injustices were created and how they can be redressed within Canadian society. Lucy co-leads a website centred on missing and murdered Indigenous women. Her goal? Diving into the history from the 1970s to the 2000s and assessing how missing and murdered Indigenous women’s narratives were misreported and misstated to understand how different stereotypes of Indigenous women formed.
“As Canadians we are responsible for learning about our own history and accounting for it. We can’t talk about an age of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples without learning and action,” says Vorobej. “Dismantling these stereotypes helps because in their present form they construct inaccurate narratives that mistakenly serve to condone colonization.”
Joined by peers aged 18 and younger, Lucy facilitates the annual Shaking the Movers initiative, where participants discuss an article from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and produce a report that is sent to the movers in society — namely parliamentarians and the leaders of NGOs. Lucy has been involved in this program for a number of years, participating in discussions on refugee and Indigenous children, children in the child welfare system, discrimination, and the right to education, to name a few.