Student Bursary
Healing through art and community: Morgan’s story
Aug 24, 2026
Three years ago, Morgan, a Red River Métis artist and active community member, sat in their therapist’s office and saw something new: a path forward, shaped by care, not cure. Their therapist didn’t just offer clinical support, she offered possibilities. “I saw your strength,” their therapist later said. “I believed you could return to school, reclaim your voice as an artist and writer, and one day build your own healing practice.”
That belief came after years of living with severe OCD, an illness that once made leaving home feel impossible. Today, Morgan is in their fourth year of a Double Major in Liberal Studies and Visual Arts at university. The transformation is not just personal, it’s cultural.
Liberal Studies taught Morgan that struggle is not isolated; it is shared, storied and systemic. Visual Arts gave them language — through ceramics, painting, sculpture, and performance — to speak what words could not. Together, these disciplines are laying the foundation for their future Master’s in Counselling and Expressive Arts Therapy.
For the past six years, Morgan has been giving back, not as charity, but as responsibility. Every two weeks, they facilitate a free, community-led support circle for womxn and femmes, dedicating 15 hours a month to holding space “to share stories of joys and hardships.” They’ve also volunteered with local farming collectives, partnered with forest schools and organized arts-based gatherings and poetry nights, all grounded in the Métis understanding that healing flows from connection: to land, to food, to ceremony and to each other.
“This work isn’t separate from my studies,” Morgan says. “It’s the reason I’m here. Receiving this bursary isn’t just helping me finish school — it’s helping me continue to hold space for others the way someone once held space for me.”
