I remember sitting in the gymnasium at Peace Wapiti Academy two years ago listening to Craig Keilburger talk about Free the Children at the opening night of the Mighty Peace Teachers Convention. I was so captivated and pumped up after the presentation, that I text my principal right away and let her know that I was interested in starting this club and that oh, by the way, I already registered our school! (I was banking on her saying yes!). I had recently heard in the news the devastating story of a young girl being targeted by the Taliban for attending school for seeking out an education in Pakistan. She was shot point blank on her bus ride to school and miraculously survived. I used the outrage I felt from this story, mixed it with the Keilburger zeal for world change, and pitched it to my homeroom students on Monday morning. (Side note: I know some of you are thinking, sure sure....it couldn't have happened that soon. But, you must not know me. If I like an idea, its happening. No if's and's or but's!). I began with a quote from Ghandi "Be the change you wish to see in the world". I can honestly say, that these students epitomize that mantra. They truly ARE the change. Let us flash forward two years and we have just harvested a crop that will build a school in our adopted village of Eor Ewasu, Kenya. These students who make up our social justice club are, excuse the pun, the cream of the crop. THEY ARE AMAZING. It is through their tireless efforts that we have been so successful. Here is a small and highly shortened timeline of our Seeds to Bricks project:
October 2013: We Day in Calgary (see my reflection here). Almost immediately afterwards, the idea for a crop project is dreamt up by one of our parent chaperones. Wouldn't that be cool? Yes. Yes it would be. How very Sexsmith of us to plant a crop for world change :-) November 2013: A list is made up of what it will take to plant, seed, harvest this crop. December 2013: A letter writing workshop to ask for fuel, seed, fertilizer, etc. The students had some very convincing letters! January 2014: Our group now has two co-presidents, a vice-president and others signed up for different roles in the group. Yipee! Go kids go! February 2014: Not many sponsor letters coming back positive. The project is teetering dangerously close to not happening. March 2014: Students still taking out letters. Doing bake sales, small fundraisers. April 2014: After countless phone calls, being turned down, and hung up on, we finally have enough sponsorship to give the project the "Go Ahead" THANK GOODNESS! (coincidentally, I start sleeping better at night.) May 2014: The crop is seeded! Wheat seed is donated by a local farm family, who's daughter is in our social justice club. The students get to ride on the tractor as we plant the 40 acre. piece of land. I even get to take a spin! June 2014: The club gets sponsorship from the Town of Sexsmith. This was a really cool opportunity for our students, as they sat in at a council meeting and three of our members spoke to the councillors about the projects. We also have the signs donated for our school and for outside by the crop. July-August 2014: The crop takes on a dry summer. Hail, not much rain and lost of 30 degree + days. However, it still looked pretty good! September 2014: The crop was harvested on September 5. Again the students were able to ride in the combine and get to see their work in action! SO. The wheat is drying, the buyers being sought out by our amazing farm family, and I am left thinking and wondering.....what will be next for this amazing group of young leaders? Shall we travel the world together? What other projects will we take on this year? { Thank you to all of our terrific sponsors, families, students, teachers and supporters. Without you, this project would never have happened! }
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We Day Alberta 2013 - October 4, 2013 @ Calgary Saddledome There are a MANY words that I would use to describe WeDay 2013 - bright, emotional, loud, life-changing, inspiring. Just to name a few. This event, I have to admit, has been on my calendar for over a year. I was really really looking forward to attending (I mean, have you seen the promotional videos?! Who wouldn't want to go?). The morning of WeDay, I could barely eat I was so excited. The chance to hear speakers like Martin Luther King Jr. III, Spencer West, and Amanda Lindhout got my inner Social Studies and social justice nerd pumped up to change the world. What I didn't anticipate was how deeply motivated and invigorated I would be after a whole day in the Saddledome with 18, 000 youth screaming and jumping around. As well, I had multiple "Thank You's" from students, coordinators and parents over the course of the day (thank you Free the Children! Made my teacher heart swell with love!). I realized early on in the day, that the hours of work needed to organize attendance at We Day has immeasurable value. To me. To kids. To the world. I realized days like WeDay are necessary, and seeing how much the students got out of the day, made me happy I worked extra hours, made those extra phone calls and had those parent meetings. It was all worth it. Everything was worth it. My favourite moment of the day was when a young environmentalist-blogger, Hannah, got on stage and talked about her hero Malala. I was blown away with her passion and message. She was up on that stage, pumping her fist and speaking so articulately that before I realized it, tears were rolling down my cheeks. I had a huge smile on my face. A 9-year old with so much passion she was almost leaping out of her body to shout out to 18, 000 young adults. YOU ARE THE CHANGE. I was mesmerized. I looked over at my students, they too were under her spell. This year, Free the Children has a HUGE and AWESOME goal. They want to raise the money for 200 new schools in their partner countries. This is the Year of Education. Pretty cool considering I am also highly invested in Education. Why, you may ask, is Free the Children dedicating this year to building schools? Because as Nikkole Heavy-Shields, FNMI activist and speaker, told us "...education is our liberation". If we truly want change in our world, we need to educate our world. It is a basic right to attend school, yet so much of the world is denied access to this right (especially girls). The more schools we build, the more people have access. It is a vital first step. More schools - More access. Simple hey? Our social justice club at St. Mary's also has a HUGE and AWESOME goal. We want to build a school in one year. We have a plan, Sexsmith style, to make this happen. It involves farming. That's all I will tell you. I'm sure I'll be posting about it later. One brick costs $20. It takes 500 bricks to build one school. $10 000. Yup. That's a lot of bake sales. But one thing I know for sure after attending We Day in Calgary, is that without a doubt, IT IS WORTH IT. “Spread the word! Have you heard? Our nation is going to be a great generation!”
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