Everything is as it should be.
ABOUT KIYAM
Kiyam is a Cree word that speaks to a way of being grounded in acceptance, presence, listening, and relationship.
For us, Kiyam carries another feeling too:
“It will be alright.”
Not because everything is always easy.
Not because we already know the answer.
But because we are working together.
HOW KIYAM CAME TO BE
Kiyam grew from a relationship that is twenty years in the making.
Jennifer Anaquod and Marny Point first met through education, with Jennifer as Marny’s student.
What began as a student and teacher relationship slowly became something much deeper.
Over the years, we became colleagues.
Then friends.
And eventually, family.
Our relationship has grown through classrooms, conversations, community, research, curriculum, professional learning, laughter, difficult questions, shared experiences, and countless moments of learning together.
We come from different Nations and carry different ways of knowing, different relationships to place, and different teachings from our communities.
We do not try to make these ways of knowing the same. We honour their differences. We learn from one another. We listen to what each of us carries.
And through our relationship, we have discovered how much becomes possible when different ways of knowing can come together with respect, reciprocity, relevance, and responsibility.
FROM STUDENT AND TEACHER TO FAMILY
There is something important about the story of how we came to work together.
Jennifer began as Marny’s student. Twenty years later, we find ourselves building Kiyam together.
Along the way, the relationship changed. We became colleagues, learning alongside one another. We became friends, sharing life beyond our work. And eventually, we became family.
That history is part of Kiyam. It reminds us that relationships cannot always be measured by a project timeline or defined by a professional role.
Some relationships grow. They deepen. They change us. And sometimes, they become the foundation for something neither person could have imagined when the relationship began. Kiyam is one of those things.
WE KNOW THIS BECAUSE WE HAVE LIVED IT
Our work together has taken us into many different spaces. We have guided educators, worked alongside researchers, supported community-based projects, and explored curriculum and Indigenous education.
We have created professional learning through story, language, land, food, and conversation. We have built relationships within institutions and beyond them, including international relationships that have given us opportunities to listen, share, and learn across different contexts.
In every space, we return to the same understanding: The relationship comes first.
We do not arrive believing we have all the answers. We arrive ready to listen. Ready to learn. Ready to share what we carry. And ready to discover what we can create together.
DIFFERENT NATIONS, SHARED RELATIONSHIP
Kiyam does not represent one Indigenous way of knowing. Our work is shaped by the understanding that Indigenous Nations are distinct, with their own histories, languages, lands, teachings, relationships, and responsibilities.
Our relationship allows us to demonstrate what it can look like to work across those differences with care. We do not speak for one another’s Nations. We listen to one another. We honour what each of us carries. We bring our own knowledge, experience, and relationships to the work. And we create space for those different ways of knowing to sit alongside one another.
We know from our own relationship that we do not have to be the same to work together. We simply need to be willing to listen, to remain open, and to take responsibility for the relationship.
It will be alright.
Because we are working together.
This is where Kiyam lives for us. Kiyam is not about pretending that everything is easy. It is about knowing that we can sit with uncertainty. We can ask the difficult questions. We can change direction. We can learn something new. We can trust the relationships that have carried us this far. And we can remind one another that we do not have to figure everything out alone.
It will be alright. Because we are working together.