An Examination of Cross-Cultural Mentorship in Alberta’s Future Leaders Program

A Comparison of Indigenous Sport for Development Policy Directives in Canada and Australia

“…The PLAY program is a collaboration funded by Right to Play, Indigenous communities, provincial and federal governments, and various private corporations. Smaller organizations such as Alberta's Future Leaders (Galipeau and Giles 2014;Rose and Giles 2007) and Outside Looking In (Rovito and Giles 2013) provide programming similar to organizations formally conceptualized as SFD, but they incorporate recreation and arts-based development. The scope of SFD in Canada is further widened with the increasing presence of extractive industries (e.g., oil, gas, and mining) funding sport, recreation, and development programs for Indigenous youth in communities affected by resource extraction (Gardam, Giles, and Hayhurst 2017b).…”

The benefits and challenges of girl-focused Indigenous SDP programs in Australia and Canada

“…For example, Alberta's Future Leaders Program sends pairs of (typically) university and college students from urban centres to First Nations reserves and Métis settlements across Alberta to promote summer-time sport, recreation, and leadership development to Indigenous youth. Galipeau and Giles (2014) found that participants in Alberta's Future Leaders Program felt that the program has the potential to halt or prevent Indigenous youths' negative life trajectories, but also noted that in focusing on the individual, the program does not address the broader social issues, like colonialism, that contribute to Indigenous youths' marginalization. While the program now often includes programming at one urban location in any given year, the program delivery model has focused on rural and remote communities (Galipeau & Giles 2014).…”

“…Despite the growing number of corporate-sponsored SDP initiatives that target Indigenous peoples (Hayhurst & Giles 2013) and communities in the Global South World (Hayhurst 2011a(Hayhurst , 2011b, scholars have largely ignored how such initiatives impact marginalized groups in the Global North. With some exceptions (e.g., Galipeau & Giles 2014;Hayhurst et al 2015;Nelson 2009;Rovito & Giles 2013;Rynne & Rossi 2012;, there are few studies that have focused on the sport and recreation experiences of Indigenous youth (particularly young women and girls) in Canada and Australia, or that have considered how funding impacts the ways that youth take up these programs.…”