Waapihk Research

Waapihk Research is an Indigenous-centered health research and economic consultancy firm. The work that is produced within this consultancy firm reflects Indigenous rights approaches such as self-governance, health equity, education and economic mobility to name a few.  

Two MDP students worked at Waapihk, Stacey Woods and Eric Lewis.

Stacey demonstrated a wide range of knowledge and understanding in Indigenous self-governance literature during her time at Waapihk Research. The field of research and development Stacey focused on was in Indigenous health policy, and more specifically, Indigenous self-governance in the sector of health. Stacey did this through deliverables such as conducting environmental scans and authoring texts like reports, a blog post on Waapihk’s website, and providing project updates for a related client. During her time at Waapihk, Stacey discovered that health self-governance is considerably large in scope as it contains varying complex features such as deciphering regional health authority provisions, navigating jurisdictional barriers (i.e., administration, law, social/political organization, governance structure, etc.), and understanding the process of moving towards transfer of decentralized health care in a locally controlled system such as within a First Nation or Indigenous community. Overall, Stacey’s research involved building upon a field of development that is arguably only in its infancy or early stages of development.

"Working alongside the Waapihk team on First Nation self-governance and health transfer policy has been nothing short of fulfilling--especially being able to participate and publish on their blog page to demonstrate my knowledge in this complex area of study." Stacey Woods

Eric worked on an education project. He also contributed to writing an assigned blog post on the importance of school nutrition programs. Specifically, Eric's tasks on the education file included data entry, data analysis, and reporting. Working on a 2022 First Nations education survey data set, Eric designed a data entry template, completed the data entry, and analyzed the data. He produced a report outlining key findings and actionable recommendations geared toward the improvement of First Nations education. Eric also contributed to developing an education data management framework for First Nations education systems in Manitoba and developed an annotated bibliography intended to be used for further education related research.

” Spending my summer researching First Nations education with Waapihk has been eye-opening. I enjoy learning about First Nations education systems.” Eric Lewis