Give a person a fish, you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish, you feed them for a lifetime.

“But what if the lake is polluted? What if there are no fish? What if the fish are toxic?” asks Diane Roussin [BSW/96] in her 2018 TED Talk on Indigenous social innovation.

By reframing this familiar proverb, Roussin emphasizes that the challenges faced by Indigenous families are the result of systemic design, not personal failings. As project director of The Winnipeg Boldness Project, an Indigenous social innovation lab, she leads a community-driven effort to unpollute the lake.

Growing up in rural Manitoba, Roussin, Anishinaabe and a member of the Skownan First Nation, experienced the constant presence of racism.

“Outside my home, I was treated as a second-class citizen. I just thought that’s the way the world was,” Roussin says.