Random Becomes Normal Acts of Kindness

What would I do?  That is the question that I kept asking myself after I read this story on the CBC website a few weeks ago.

Two teenage brothers in Montreal decided to do a social experiment.  The younger one dressed in jeans and a hoodie, sat on a Montreal street in the winter holding a sign made from cardboard saying, “14 years old, hungry, homeless, please help.”  The other brother filmed from across the street. Around 300 people passed by the boy.  A few gave money and two young men stopped to talk.  Then a homeless Inuk man approached the boy, took off his winter coat and put it around the shoulders of the boy with the sign. 

It turns out that the man, Putulik Qumaq has lived in Montreal for 17 years after following his mother to the city from Nunavut at age 21.  He lives in and out of shelters and is part of a community of homeless people in the city.  When later interviewed by the CBC, he said that those people all help each other so it was natural for him to help the boy.  He said that he knows how to deal with the cold temperatures, but here was a young boy who seemed to be in trouble and he wondered what he could do to help him.  (CBC News Posted: Feb 04, 2016)

                                             Random Acts of Kindness facebook page

The Azmeer brothers made a youtube video from their experience which reached people around the world.  Scott Vyse was one of those people.  He recognized the logo on the tuque that Putiluk was wearing.  It was from Northern Mat & Bridge, an Alberta based construction company that he is a managing partner of.  Scott was inspired by Putiluk’s generosity and decided to give what he could as well.  So he sent hundreds of the same tuques to the Open Door in Montreal where Putiluk and his community get food and warm clothing, as well as shelters in Calgary and Edmonton.

                                   

After hearing this story I wondered what I would do if I saw this young boy on the street.  I have raised four kids myself and yet I walk by people with signs and cups in Toronto.  What would I do?  The question stayed with me.

A week later, I was leaving the parking lot of No Frills after buying my weekly groceries.  As I approached the corner I noticed a young man dressed in a parka standing on the corner holding a cardboard sign that looking eerily like the one in the Montreal story.  It read, “Hungry, Homeless, God Bless.”  In my mind’s eye, I could see Putiluk walking over to the man and offering his coat.  So I parked my car, took some money out of my wallet and walked over to the man.  His back was to me so I had to call out to him.  He turned around and I handed him the money.  “Gosh,” he said.  “Get something to eat,” I said, ever the mother.  And that was it.  I got back in my car and drove home, unpacked my food and had lunch.

I know someone who gives loaded Tim Horton’s cards to friends for Christmas so that if they meet someone who looks like they could use a meal, they can give them one of the cards.  She told me that it doesn’t fix the world but it is something that can be done.

Later in the week I was at my office in Toronto and I went out to mail a letter without my purse.  There is an older woman who stands outside of the local LCBO every day with a cup.  She is very friendly and I have talked to her in the past.  She was dressed in a warm parka but it was mid-winter so when I walked past her I said, “It’s cold today, eh?”  She replied, “Yeah but it was colder yesterday.”  I mailed my letter and as I got it out of my pocket, I discovered some coins in there.  So on my way back, I put them in her cup.  She said, “Thank you.  And happy Valentine’s Day… and Family Day.”  I added, “And Chinese New Year!”  She laughed and replied, “Well the only ones I really care about are Christmas and Mother’s Day.”  So I assumed she had kids.  Then we stood and chatted about how long we left up our Christmas lights inside just to bring some cheer to the long winter.  Two older women chatting about how we cope with life. And then I returned to work. 

If you watch the news too much, it is easy to feel that all we have are problems, hate and fear.  It all seems too big to fix when it is presented that way.  Fear makes people pull in which only makes the problems grow.   Putiluk’s words about how the people in his community gathered and shared together to survive stayed in my mind.  He knew what it was to be cold on the street and so he empathized with the boy.    David Chapman, the assistant director at the Open Door talked about how people who have suffered hardship are often the most generous.  “Often, those who live on the street are people with really big hearts, and this is an aspect that’s often not seen.” (Sarah Leavitt, CBC News Posted: Jan 14, 2016)

I wonder how to have a big heart in the midst of all of this?  Perhaps by having the courage to empathize with others and offering whatever help we can.  Science has shown that when we do this, the person helped feels better and so do we and so does anyone seeing this happen.  It may seem like a small thing and on one level it is.  But on another level, doing what is natural – remembering that we are all in this together – is actually being part of the solution. 

                                   

When I shared this story with a friend, she told me the story of how she and another friend were having coffee in a café.  She noticed an older women sitting at the next table who kept counting her money over and over again.  So when the two younger women went to pay for their coffee, they also paid for the older woman’s.  “I felt great!” said the woman telling me the story.  Perhaps, the good feeling comes from remembering that we are all connected, that we can do something to help each other, that together, life can be warmer, even in a big city.

                                      Random Acts of Kindness facebook page

I later discovered that last week was Random Act of Kindness week on theRandom Acts of Kindness Foundation  facebook page where I found inspiring pictures and more stories. This will probably be a good place to visit on days when life seems too hard.  I guess the word “random” is used because the act of kindness is for someone we don’t know.  Not the normal kind of kindness for a friend or family member.  But when we start to think in terms of a global village, a global family, then the randomness becomes normal and new solutions begin to emerge.  Solutions we can all be a part of.

                                      

Return, Renewal and Reconciliation

I recently heard a wonderful story of loss, return, cooperation and healing.  A friend told me about a radio interview he had heard on the CBC.  It was an archival piece of broadcaster Peter Gzowski interviewing Metis filmmaker Gil Cardinal who passed away in November of 2015.  During the interview they discussed Cardinal’s film  Totem: The Return of the G'psgolox Pole   released in 2003.  My friends and I decided to see if the film was available on the National Film Board of Canada website and we found that it was free for the viewing.  We also noticed that a later film Totem: Return and Renewal  was released in 2007 so we chose to watch that one and hear this beautiful story about a little known chapter of Canadian history.

In 1872, Chief G’psgolox of the Kitlope people, now Haisla nation, suffered the catastrophic loss of all of his children and many family members.  Struggling with this loss, he had a spiritual experience with the spirit Tsooda that is expressed in a nine meter tall mortuary pole, a gravestone, that he had commissioned.  It was erected in the Haisla village of Misk’usa in the Kitlope valley, about 600 km northwest of Vancouver.

On the top of the pole is Tsooda wearing a hat.  Below him is Asoalgot and a mythical grizzly that lives under the water.  The pole tells the story of resurrection, that the family and tribe of G’psgolox will be woken up and brought back to life.  

In 1929 without any permission, the pole was cut down by an Indian agent and sold to Sweden.  It ended up in the Swedish National Museum of Ethnography where it was kept in storage for fifty years.  In 1980 when a new museum was built, the pole was erected in a main hall and held up with a metal collar and guide wires.

The whereabouts of the G’psgolox pole remained a mystery to the Haisla people until 1991 when they discovered that it was in Sweden.  Haisla Chief Councellor Gerald Amos and Louisa Smith, a descendent of Chief G’psgolox travelled to see the long lost pole and began negotiations with the museum for repatriation.  This took many years.  The Haisla people offered and began to carve a duplicate pole to take the place of the original one in Sweden.  After fifteen years of negotiations, the Swedish government agreed to repatriate the pole.  However, the museum wouldn’t release the pole unless a special climate controlled building was erected to house it.  The Haisla people couldn’t afford that.  As Cardinal tells the story you begin to wonder if the pole will ever be repatriated. 

However, the Swedish public had been hearing the Haisla tell the story of the importance of the pole’s return for them for years.  In an unexpected turn of events, the public started to put pressure on the museum to return the pole.  Cardinal narrates, “an empathetic alliance was formed with the people of Sweden.”  Public pressure grew and the museum relinquished the pole. This was the first time a totem pole had been repatriated from overseas by a First Nation.

To satisfy their own condition, the museum agreed to make a climate controlled shipping crate that would house the pole.  Before it left, the Haisla erected the replica pole in Sweden.  And then in 2006, twenty-five years after it had been found, the old pole began a 9000 km sea voyage through the Panama Canal to Vancouver.  It was housed in the Museum of Anthropology there for two months so that people could see it and so this story could be shared with Canadians.  One Haisla elder hoped it would facilitate reconciliation.

The problem of climate control still existed.  The owners of the City Centre Mall in the town of Kitimat offered to host the pole while the money was raised for a cultural centre in Kitamaat Village to be built as a permanent home.

The Haisla believed that repatriation of the pole was vitally important.   They felt that it was an “invisible umbilical cord to the ancestors.”  One elder said, “The spirit of the people will wake up when the pole is returned.”  The whole community had united together to reclaim their cultural heritage and the negotiations became a “catalyst for cultural renewal.”  And the cultures of the Haisla and the Swedes working together in understanding, promoted healing as well.

Once it got to the mall in Kitimat, the Haisla elders used the pole to teach their children about their history.  There is a lovely scene of a Haisla child asking an elder if the pole would ever be put upright again.  She kindly answered that no, the pole would always stay on its side now because traditionally when a pole fell down, it would be left for nature to take its course. The elders also educated the people of the Kitimat with whom they shared the pole, about the significance of the pole and how it came to be returned.

In a particularly poignant scene, an elder shows the metal yoke that held the pole in place in Sweden.  The yoke became a symbol for the Haisla of the imprisonment of their cultural practices and now that it was off, the people are free to celebrate their culture fully.

At the welcoming ceremony at Kitamaat Village, a thousand people squeezed into the recreation centre including neighbouring First Nations, sponsors, politicians, museum representatives and of course, David Suzuki.  One Haisla elder said he had always felt that “our mission must be to create better stories together.  Stories we can be proud of, that we can tell our children.  The return of the pole is a good story.”

This story is of course best told by Gil Cardinal.  The acclaimed Metis filmmaker, director and writer began work with the NFB in 1970 telling indigenous stories including his own in Foster Child.  He directed dramas for CBC such as Big Bear in 1995 and Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis in 2006 and worked on North of 60.

Jesse Wente, critic and director of film programs for the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto said of Cardinal, “His devotion to truth and storytelling advanced indigenous cinema by laying the path for future generations to follow” (CBC News Nov. 23, 2015).  Filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin spoke of his historical importance to Canada.  And his business partner, Dorothy Schreiber said, “If Canadians take the time to watch Gil’s films, that will be an act of reconciliation” (Globe and Mail, Dec. 18, 2015).

The storyteller is gone but the stories remain.  They are good stories.  You can see many of them on the NFB website.  Perhaps listening to their truth is part of reconciliation and creating better stories together – stories we can be proud of that we can tell our children and grandchildren. 

Many Hearts Beating as One

Alive Inside powerfully tells the story of how music connects people with themselves and with each other.   Filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett chronicles the work of social worker Dan Cohen who uses music on iPods with people who are suffering from dementia.  Music that they loved when they were young has the ability to reconnect the people with memories and enhances their physical and verbal functioning.  Cohen founded the non-profit organization Music and Memory that trains volunteers to work with people with dementia using individually selected music.  The results are quite startling as uncommunicative seniors start to sing, speak and move once the music is turned on.  You can watch the trailer or order the film from Music and Memory or Amazon.

The film includes information on biology and neurology applicable to music.  At a few weeks gestation, the human embryo develops cells that begin to “beat together”.  These cells go on to form the heart.  The filmmaker shows these early cells firing together and concludes that we are wired to share a common rhythm, that we are musical beings that are meant to share that music with each other.  This uplifting film won the Audience Award at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Last spring, I saw the Red Dirt Skinners, a British duo, perform at a house concert in Waubaushene, ON.  On their promotional information they invited audience members to bring used iPods to donate so that they could be used by people with memory loss in England.  It seemed that this idea was happily spreading.

This past weekend, I heard a CBC radio interview from Ontario Morning with Wei Chen.  Sixteen year old Naomi G. has witnessed the changes in her grandfather who has dementia, when he listens to songs by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole on an iPod.  He becomes communicative and engages again.  This experience and seeing an intergenerational choir in London, ON motivated her to start an intergenerational choir in Kingston linking student volunteers with people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  She started the group off by doing a group sing along session for a few weeks and realized that most of the people had smiles on their faces by the end. 

Naomi chose to pair students with seniors so that they could also develop relationships that enrich both of their lives since not all young people have grandparents and not all elderly people have grandchildren. The choir sings what Naomi calls the old classics like You Are My Sunshine, Amazing Grace and When Irish Eyes are Smiling.  Naomi’s goal is “more about happiness than creating a great sound” and she hopes that the happiness experienced during the choir sessions continues when the participants go home.  The students had some training from the Alzheimer’s Society and a staff person from that organization also attends the sessions just in case help is needed.

I belong to a drum circle, Harmony Grace, where people play African drums such as djembes and other percussion instruments.  We play intuitively with no set leader, listening to one another and finding our place, our voice, our rhythm as part of the whole.  Sometimes the creation is amazing and sometimes it is not, but the process of playing together is always good.  In the summer we play outside by Lake Simcoe.  Passing people are welcomed in, accepted and celebrated.  Sometimes children drag their parents over and are delighted to participate with the rhythm instruments we share.

                                             Rob (standing) in good health

A year ago, one of our members passed away.  We had watched him grow thin, then gaunt and tired from the journey of cancer but he still added his wild energy to the group when he could.  A few months after he died, we were back at the lakeshore again. People brought drums that Rob had left to them and we took turns playing them.  As I played one of his djembes, I thought about life and death.  I thought about the drum made from a hollow tree trunk and covered by goat skin.  The African tree and goat and Rob are no longer living physically.  And yet the music we made connected us to those lives.  It helped us to heal, I believe, playing together, sharing memories of our friend, drums beating together, hearts beating together.  I thought of the embryonic heart cells firing together and I had to agree with Rossato-Bennett that we are wired to create rhythm and music together, our hearts beating as one.  

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.