Oki Tansi my dear readers! How long has it been since I last updated? TOO LONG!
A lot has happened since then; I moved to BC, but I am back in Alberta again now after things didn’t quite work out as planned. Such is life, and all I can do is keep moving forward. I had intended to keep my business in BC, with links to Alberta (given that my extended family is still located here). However, after unexpectedly moving back from BC due to several reasons, I have made the decision to relocate the blog business back to Alberta again for the time being – this doesn’t mean I won’t be back in BC though! I am hoping to continue doing work across the country through my blogging and vlogging, bringing you dear readers new exciting content. For now, I am focusing on doing work in my own home community of Kainai (Blood Tribe), as I re-group from the move and plan out 2019.
If you have been following us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, you will know that we have decided to take the blog in a new direction in 2018 and into the future. You may have also noticed that we have a brand-new look to our website + a new domain name + Shop, which incorporates our social media channels; how cool is that? Let us know what you think of our new look by leaving a comment on our social media channels, or below.
Our new direction for the blog is less focused on just showcasing entrepreneurs, due to the time it takes to create those blogs, and is now more focused on WELLNESS through ART, ENTREPRENEURISM, and FINANCIAL LITERACY. Why this change in direction, you might be asking…?
In addition to keeping busy working full-time these past 2-3 years, we have also been actively attempting to network with entrepreneurs and have been attending many a-conferences in between. What we noticed after working in the financial industry for approximately 5 years, is that there is a need for Financial Literacy in our Indigenous communities, and many of you have questions about taxes, credit, and investing. While we are by no means an expert, we have been blessed to be able to gain an understanding of these topics through our formal education, as well as through direct experience working with Indigenous communities, entrepreneurs and artists through our travels. We have begun to be able to apply such concepts to the Indigenous Market, and actively use these concepts in our own financial planning and tax planning and want to share that knowledge with others. We also want to create more community among our readers and have been looking at new ways to drive traffic to our blog site, while helping other entrepreneurs and artists at the same time. While we went to school for business, our first love has and will always be ART! Therefore, we have decided to make the change to the blog’s focus and future direction (plus, it allows for much more content and avenues for posting content to keep you dear followers engaged and on-top of Indigenous Busy-ness in the West). Don’t worry, we will still be doing showcases on Indigenous businesses, as this is how we got our start, and there is still interest from entrepreneurs in being included in our blog content.
With these changes, new opportunities are bound to come up, and we are so excited to announce that we are also a new Brand Ambassador for CHEEKBONE BEAUTY, which is an Indigenous owned and operated Make-up Company from the East. They have beautifully pigmented uniquely named lipsticks and products, but another great thing about the Brand is that they also give back to Indigenous Education through their profits. We will have a longer blog post about their work in Indigenous Communities and why we support this work for you in March. Stay tuned!
We are having so much fun sharing social media updates for the brand and wanted to let you dear readers in on our DISCOUNT CODE! You can support this brand’s endeavours in supporting Indigenous education by making a purchase, and you can also save yourself some cash (10% off total order to be exact). How you can do this is by using our DISCOUNT CODE “CHEYM98” at check-out, or by following this link. Your purchase helps support Indigenous education, as well as the work I do in Indigenous communities, as I receive a commission from the sales collected under my code. We are so grateful for your support, as it helps us bring low-cost or free Informal Networking sessions and other relevant workshops to Indigenous communities, entrepreneurs and artists in the West (BC and Alberta).
We currently have a call-out going for our first collaborative Blog, about IDENTITY, and will have some submission guidelines out to you by next week that incorporates a bit of our own story and background. We are hoping to have this blog out by end of February or early march and all submissions will receive FREE Bathbombs from the Shop, for their submission to our first call-out. You can fill out our contact form here for more details before the submission guidelines are out, or if you have an interest in telling us your story and sharing with our followers. We hope to continue to create a community for and by you, through these collaborative blogs and give-aways, so please stay tuned on our social media for these calls. Our next give-away will be an item from our first Raven Reads subscription box. Be sure to follow them on Instagram, Facebook, or order for the next quarterly box here. We are way too excited for our first box, and look forward to bringing you a vlog on our unboxing.
We will also be posting a Vlog of the 2nd annual Koksilah Music Festival we attended back in September 2018 in Cowichan Territory this week to our YouTube channel (since we are going to be attending a Snotty Nose Rez Kids concert again soon and are super excited for it). We will also be doing a Summer 2018 and Fall 2018 vlog for March 2019, followed by a Winter 2019 vlog in April 2019 on our YouTube channel.
Remember, we are still trying to get to 250 subscribers on YouTube, to give-away our ZERO-WASTE gift package (we have made it on Instagram, thank you all for following us there). We will be doing an updated video on this package though, given that we lost some of the items in our move. It will be improved though! And we hope you like it and decide to subscribe! That’s all for now, thank you to all our readers and follows for coming on this journey with us, and continuing to stick by me even though I sometimes suck at posting and updating you all here at Indigenousbusyness.blog. We will be posting more original content in 2019, plus sharing great content from others to continue to build our brand and community. Until next time,
Kitakitamatsin (see you later),
Natoyihkii [Holy Whistle, Blackfoot name given to me by my grandpa]