We Made a Deal

A young mother told me a story about her seven-year-old daughter.  It was pizza day at her daughter’s school and the young girl wanted to know if her mother was going to help out as she usually did.  “Of course,” the mother reassured her.  As it often happens, the mom had many things to do in the morning and before coming into the school she sat in her car and ate her own lunch. 

Meanwhile, in the school, the pizzas had arrived early and two mothers were distributing them to the classes including the daughter’s classroom.  When the little girl saw that her mom was not there she crumpled, sobbing.  The teacher tried to console her but to little avail.  By this time the mom was in the school and helping out in a different area.  She was told of her daughter’s situation and went to talk to her.  It seemed that the girl wasn’t so much disappointed in missing her mother but in not being allowed to help distribute the pizza.  She enjoyed having this important role. The mom who had come to the classroom had allowed her own daughter in the same classroom to help instead.

The two mothers talked afterwards and they both agreed that whichever one was giving out the pizzas, would make sure that both daughters would be allowed to help out. “We made a deal,” the young woman told me, smiling.  It was an easy solution that took into consideration the mother’s schedules and the daughters’ needs.  Easy, obvious, sensible and caring.  They would just cooperate.

When I heard the story, I laughed and said it’s too bad that mothers weren’t running the United Nations.  No one would want their children to be hurt.  They would just make a deal that worked for everyone.

Shortly after I heard that story, I got a DVD from the library called Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008).  This documentary tells the story of the women’s peace movement in Liberia, West Africa.  After fourteen years of civil war between the dictatorship of Liberian president Charles Taylor and the rebel group LURD, social worker, Leymah Gbowee decided to organize Christian women to work for peace.  Tired of the fear, atrocities and destruction, she started with her own church and then brought women from other churches together as well.  At one meeting a Muslim woman spoke up, saying that Muslim women should be added to the group.  The Liberian president was Christian but the rebels were Muslim.  And so the women made a deal, an alliance, to work together and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Campaign was born in 2003.

The women, numbering in the thousands and dressed in plain white clothes to signify mourning, started by protesting at the fish market that Taylor drove past every day, holding signs, singing and praying.  Eventually the Christian women convinced Charles Taylor to come to peace talks and the Muslim women convinced the rebels to attend as well.  After weeks of the two sides holding meetings in nearby Ghana without any progress, the women staged a sit-in that prevented the men from leaving the meeting hall, thereby forcing them to make a deal which they did.

The UN Peacekeepers arrived in Liberia and Charles Taylor who had been charged with war crimes was exiled to Nigeria. However, the UN Peacekeepers who thought they knew best, created chaos and the women realized that they would have to lead the way with forgiveness and reconciliation in order to achieve disarmament of the country.  Having achieved this, they focused on the election of a new president.  The women’s peace movement continued to work during the election process, getting young women interested in voting.  The outcome was that the first female president of an African country, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf  was elected in 2006.

This non-violent peace movement created by women who came together to work for their commonly held desire for a cessation of violence and a democratically elected leader also created healing in the communities as the perpetrators of violence were forgiven and welcomed back home. They put aside their differences and focused their considerable energy to create change and healing.  The film is inspiring and affirming.  Coincidentally, it also seemed to answer my question about what would happen if mothers ran the United Nations.

Soon after that, a friend sent me a link to Today I Rise, a beautiful poem/film on Films for Action which I invite you to watch here .

It begins with a whisper,

 “Where are you? Where are you, little girl with broken wings but full of hope?  Where are you, wise women covered in wounds?  Where are you?”

It continues…. “The world is missing what I am ready to give/ my wisdom, my sweetness, my love and my hunger for peace…”

“Today I rise….”

Playing for Change

 “With a voice like yours, why are you singing on the streets?” asked Mark.  “Man I’m in the joy business.  I come out to be with the people,” replied Roger.

Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke co-created Playing for Change in 2002 to “inspire and connect the world through music” using a mobile recording studio and camera to record street musicians.  In 2005, Mark came across Roger Ridley singing Stand by Me, in California and was inspired by the conviction in Roger’s voice to create a “Song Around the World” by recording musicians from around the world singing or playing this song and compiling them in a stunning music video. 

The team continued to record more Songs Around the World and also created a Playing for Change band made up from musicians from many countries.  Next came the Playing for Change Foundation to build music and art schools for children around the world in an effort to “create hope and inspiration for the future of our planet.”

One of my favourite Playing for Change videos is War - No More Trouble by Bob Marley. It includes Bono from U2 as well as the Omagh Youth Choir, a member of the Arab-Jewish Orchestra and musicians from many other countries.

The Omagh Youth Choir from Northern Ireland was created in 1998 after a car bombing killed 29 people and left hundreds injured.  Local music student Daryl Simpson wanted to bring people together so he set up a youth choir to bring Protestant and Catholic kids together to share music and to learn about each other.  He says that he used music to bring” healing and comfort and to raise a positive awareness of a community working together for peace. “ You can view the choir singing U2’s song Love Rescue Me on youtube.  The choir still performs all over the world in an attempt to open hearts and minds by their beautiful example.

The Arab-Jewish Orchestra was formed in 2002.  It consists of twenty young musicians from various parts of Israel.  Using instruments and music from both the east and the west, they create a new music that speaks of peace and harmony which you can view here

Well, once you are on Youtube, things start appearing.  I discovered Shades of Praise the New Orleans Interracial Community Gospel Choir.  It was formed in 2000 by Philip Manuel and Michael Cowan.  They wondered if by bringing people of different races together to sing, they might create an environment where relationships formed, thus creating racial harmony.  Their first performance was scheduled for September 12, 2001, the day after 9/11.  And so they became a voice of hope on that day of mourning.  Over time, the choir has become known for its joyful, high energy gospel sound.  The obvious closeness of the choir members gives audiences a “glimpse of what New Orleans could be.”  When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the choir who were a family of sixty people by now, searched each out and helped each other with housing, raising money, jobs and healing.

The Island of Ireland Peace Choir was also formed in the aftermath of the Omagh car bombing.  It has Catholic and Protestant members from both the North and South who want to spread the message of peace through music.   You can hear them singing in Belgium at the Christmas Peace Truce 1914 – 2014.  They work at building community relations and demonstrating how different denominations can work together to bring peace to Ireland.  Their mission is to be a “potent symbol of their shared aspiration for a new style of society on this island where difference and discord gives way to something more inclusive and harmonious.”

And then I discovered theVancouver Peace Choir.  The vision of this choir is “to create a space to inspire balance and acceptance in our world.”  You can see a totally unique performance with Randy Wood from Saddle Lake First Nation (Alberta) performing  The Rumble.

I knew by then that I could keep on searching and peace choirs would show up everywhere. But back to Bob Marley and my favourite Playing for Change video.  In War – No More Trouble, Marley took the lyrics from a speech made by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie before the United Nations General Assembly in 1963.

          Until the philosophy which holds one race

          Superior and another inferior

          Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned

          Everything is war…

He goes on…

We don’t need no more trouble….

What we need is love

To guide and protect us on

If you hope good down from above

Help the weak to be strong now.

My partner and I and a friend were performing this song at an open mic at the Midland Cultural Centre.  It took some thinking to turn this Song Around the World into three of us with guitars and a flute in the same room, and bringing the energy of the world into that room. The audience were paying attention and the energy was good so I took a chance and started to ad lib the lyrics at the end of the song.  “What we need is love…”  Looking around me I saw the woman who serves the coffee and snacks.  “What we need is coffee,”  I sang and the crowd applauded for her.  Seeing the mentally challenged young man who was playing the shakers behind me, I sang, “What we need is shakers.”  Again, more applause.  “And mandolins, and organizers… I sang about everything I could see in that wonderful group and ended with “What we need is community.”   We all applauded for that. The music pulled us together and helped us to be aware of the community  that we had formed there in that space.

So if you’re tired of hearing “bad news” on the radio, TV or in the press, I invite you to spend a little time listening to these inspiring people creating music, creating peace, creating harmony and a world that we want to live in.  And then let that inspiration work in you and see what happens.

Cats Five

The evening would later be remembered as the one before the big storm but as we sat behind the barn, we just knew that it was hot – and very humid.  We had spent most of the week occupied with hay; cutting, turning, baling.  All the time watching the sky and hoping for the right weather.  For hay that is.  The sun had shone and except for one short shower, the conditions had been perfect.

But we could tell that the weather was going to change and we wanted to get the hay into the barn before it did.

We had a great crop with an unexpected extra 200 bales.  In the heat, this blessing was hard to appreciate.  The air was thick and stifling in the hayloft and we could only work for short periods of time.  So, after a while, we sat behind the barn drinking water, waiting for the heat to diminish.

Suddenly from the window above came a call, “Sharon, Sharon! Cats!”  I looked up and there was Veetya holding up four fingers.  Veetya was staying with us for six weeks.  He had been a toddler living in Chernobyl, Ukraine when the nuclear reactor exploded in 1986.  He and his family had been contaminated with radiation and relocated to a village some distance away.  However, the new village was also contaminated, although to a lesser degree.  Many of the children in the area were, nine years later, getting sick – cancer, hair loss and depressed immune systems.

We were part of a group to get these Children of Chernobyl away from the radiation to improve their health, to boost their immune systems, and Veetya had come to live with us for the summer.  He was just learning English and could say only a few words.  One of them was “cat.”

We had three barn cats and five new kittens.  The kittens’ nest had been exactly where the bales were dropping off the hay elevator onto the hay loft floor.  The younger children were to look after the kittens who still attempted to return to their nest.  And now one of the kittens was missing!  This is what Veetya was telling me.

It will show up, I reasoned and put the matter out of my mind as we climbed up to the loft again and began to catch and haul bales higher and higher.  They seemed to get heavier by the minute.

We finally finished.  The relief of knowing that 600 bales awaited the winter safe and warm in the barn still overshadowed the kitten’s plight.  During the night a huge wind storm with sheet lightning struck.

The storm had awakened Veetya and he ran to the barn as soon as he got up in the morning.  I was eating breakfast when he came into the kitchen from the barnyard and proclaimed with a huge smile on his face, “Sharon.  Cats five!”  His eyes showed relief and joy.

I felt joy also, at first because this was Veetya’s first English “sentence”.  I felt very proud. 

Then I began to understand what he was telling me.  The missing kitten was back with its mother and brothers and sister.  The lost one had returned.  The family was reunited and all was well.

                                Veetya at right with his family

Veetya was the youngest of a family of five children.  Four boys and one girl, just like the kittens.  They had lost their home and been relocated, just like the kittens.  Veetya’s mother was currently in a sanatorium and his father was disabled from the nuclear accident.  This boy knew what it was to be taken from his home and to feel disoriented.  He understood what it felt like to be the one kitten far from home, far from his family.   He knew how important it was to be reunited!

But the parallels went even further.  My family had four children, three boys and a girl. With Veetya, we now had four boys and one girl.  We had hung the picture of him with our family so that he knew that he was part of our family.  He was now the fifth child of two families, half a world away.  He was the “cat five.”

Eventually Veetya went back to Ukraine to be reunited with his family.  The fifth kitten was going back to where he belonged.  But in travelling away and coming back home, he built a bridge of friendship between Canada and Ukraine, between two families, between himself and all of us.

Our family missed him and it felt like “cats four” for quite a while.  We never wrote because his family had little money to spend on postage and we didn’t want to burden them.   I can only imagine how hard it was for his parents to trust complete strangers to take care of their ten-year-old son but they knew that it would give a better chance of life.  And I hope it. did.  When I hear news of Ukraine, I wonder if he is part of it.  When my kids were born, we still thought of Russia including Ukraine, as the enemy.  Ten years later a Ukrainian boy taught us beautifully about belonging to the global family.

Shannen's Dream

There’s a story I recently heard.  It happened in Canada.  It happened in the past ten years.  Some of it was vaguely familiar but somehow I missed most of it.  I admit, I don’t watch the news every night or read a newspaper every day but this is such an inspiring story that I can’t believe that I missed it.  Maybe you missed it too, so I will tell you the story.  Maybe you didn’t miss it and you will remember it fondly.

The story came to me when my partner told me that Charlie Angus, MP for Timmins-James Bay was going to be on CBC radio talking about a new book he had written, Children of the Broken Treaty.  I was free so I tuned in and listened. I was intrigued and so I read the book. I wanted to know more. At the library, I found a book by Janet Wilson, Shannen and the Dream for a School that told the story for older children. Once I learned that filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin had made Hi-Ho Mistahey! about this story I downloaded it and watched the story come to life.

This is the story of a teenager named Shannen Koostachin who lived in the First Nation of Attawapiskat on James Bay.  The elementary school had to be condemned in 2000 because of poor construction by the government contractor that allowed a pipe to leak tens of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel into the ground beneath it.  Three Ministers of Indian Affairs had promised to build a new school and had reneged on each of these promises.  The kids went to school in old portables that were often very cold, were disconnected from each other and were not up to safety standards.  Because the federal government is responsible for reserve schools they don’t have to be up to provincial standards.  In fact, these federally funded schools only receive roughly two thirds of the funding that provincially funded schools receive per child.

Shannen wanted to change this situation for her siblings and the other young people in her community. “It really feels like we’re alone and that no one cares.  But we really think we can make a difference,” she said at age 13 (Wilson, 42). She and other young people from the community began a campaign in 2007 to fight for a new school.  They created a Facebook page and youtube video with Charlie Angus about their situation that attracted the attention of kids across Canada You can still view it at view it here.  It powerfully describes their situation in three minutes and lets other children know how to help.

Together children from across Canada wrote thousands of letters to the government, held protests, signed the on-line petition and even went to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of First Nations Child and Family Service Caring Society of Canada called this Students-Helping Students campaign “the largest child-led children’s rights movement in Canadian history.” (Wilson, 131)  They gained the support of school boards, teachers’ federations, churches and union workers.

Sadly, in 2010 Shannen died in a car accident before she could see the new school built.  Her passing was a terrible blow to her community and to the campaign but other young leaders stepped forward to continue what became known as Shannen’s Dream.

In Nov 2010 Shannen’s friend Chelsea Edwards spoke after Shannen’s family accepted a human rights award on her behalf from the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of the Child.  Chelsea said, “Shannen’s Dream is about inspiring our Aboriginal students.  One spark can light a fire inside every Aboriginal student.  It’s not just about the students in Attawapiskat.  It’s about freedom, equality, and justice for children in every reserve across Canada.  Today I ask for your support.  Shannen said we could change the world if we tried.  We can do that hand in hand as we stand together shoulder to shoulder and say ‘We can do it.’  Let’s make her dream become a reality.  For those of you who want to make a difference. Join with us.  Stand with us.  Let’s make the change right now!”  (Wilson, p. 185)

In 2012 Charlie Angus’ Shannen’s Dream motion was unanimously passed by the House of Commons.  This statement of principle declared that First Nation children have an equal right to high quality education as off reserve Canadian children including the funding necessary and collaboration with First Nation leaders.

The new school was completed in 2014. Shannen’s teacher Carinna Pellett said, “These children are beautiful people; they have ideas, skills, and abilities which need to be encouraged and inspired as much as any other child in Canada.  We need to provide them with a place where they are proud to go every day.” (Wilson, 29)  Charlie Angus reflected that “Shannen had taught me, however, that building a school isn’t just an investment in infrastructure but also a project of hope.  It is a commitment to the future.  She had been right.  I could see this hope manifested in a beautiful building in which spirited children played in an environment free from mice, toxins, and almost certain failure.” (Angus, 285)

Shannen continues to inspire.  I discovered that artist Tyler Fauvelle was commissioned to create a statue of her dancing in her Pow Wow regalia which was erected in New Liskeard where she went to high school.  You can see this beautiful monument here.

This inspiration is expressed beautifully by Keisha Iahtail from Timmins at age 14: “Shannen was an ordinary individual who found the strength to persevere and endure in spite of an overwhelming obstacle – taking the stand to fight for Native rights.  As Shannen said, ‘Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.’  She took action and shared her faith in what she had always believed was right.  She became a shining light and such a big help to others in our community.  And now the broken pieces to the heart of Attawapiskat have healed.  Thanks to her example we can become the solution.  We can put words into action.  And we can finally make dreams into reality” (Wilson, 181).

It is heartbreaking that Shannen never saw the school she fought so hard for but it would be even more heartbreaking if other on-reserve children never saw the schools they need.  The new government of Canada has promised to end this inequity.  That is going to take political will, money and the support of Canadians.  The story is not over.  We can be part of what the children began by adding our voices of support to this new government. We too can put our words into action and be part of the solution.

Be Part of the Story: Resources

You can write to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs at the House of Commons, Ottawa, ON  K1A 0A6 (no stamp needed) or email them.at justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca or carolyn.bennett@parl.gc.ca .

Angus, C. (2015) Children of the Broken Treaty. Regina: University of Regina Press.

Angus gives a concise history of the residential school system and the government forces that have created the chronically underfunded on-reserve school system.  It is an easy way to learn the history that we never learned in school.

NFB Film Hi-Ho Mistahey  Alanis Obomsawin 

You can rent this film on-line for under $3. Watching this film allowed me to hear the voices and see the faces of Shannen’s family, friends, the politicians that helped, community members, and children from across Canada.  I cheered them on and burst into applause when I heard the children reading their speeches from the steps of Parliament Hill. 

Wilson, Janet (2011) Shannen and the Dream for a School.Toronto: Second Story Press. I found this book at my local library.  It is full of photographs of Shannen and her friends, the community and the other school children who supported them.  Shannen’s words are shared throughout the book. It is also a good read for adults with less time.

Shannen's Dream Facebook page is a good way to stay up to date on this story.