Diana FrostI am an Algonquin Métis, engineer by day, and artist, musician and author by night. My mother was Algonquin from the Weskarini tribe, who settled near Trois-Rivières, in Quebec. She was excommunicated from her aboriginal family for marrying my father an Englishman, who also committed the crime of not being Catholic. As a result, I have never met my First Nations family, but have always wanted to connect with them. Along the way, I've travelled extensively and for several years both volunteered and working as an engineer overseas on projects to improve water and sanitation systems for small cities and mountain villages. As someone who has always been interested in other cultures, I've been lucky enough to work on projects in Colombia, Peru, China, and Rwanda. I'm very proud of the work I did while with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST). When I first joined the company, we were four people working out of the President's home. My job was to figure out how to disseminate information on household water treatment and build capacity sustainably in Latin America and the Caribbean. After many attempts, I found what worked and what didn't. We evolved the model to a train the trainers model so that by the time I left, I was able to verify I had helped 500,000 people get better water by empowering local NGOs to do the work themselves. That number has grown exponentially because of the Train the trainer approach we took. During my time at CAWST, I became aware of the poor quality of water on some First Nations reserves. I was unable to do anything about it because of the political situation and a lack of connections. From that knowledge and desire to help, plus the yearning to learn more about my roots, the idea for this project was born. And so, out of all of this, the Colouring It Forward project began to grow. Along with my appreciation and love for the artists' work as an artist myself, the colouring book series has given me a chance to learn more about First Nations people, culture and wisdom. I also have the opportunity to 'colour it forward' with these books by giving a percentage of the proceeds from the books to the artist and the First Nations Projects that will be further defined in collaboration with the communities through my website www.colouringitforward.com. Read More Read Less