IROQUOIS – During Seaway District High School’s ‘Orange Shirt Day’ activities October 4th, the school’s Link leader program undertook a mosaic project to commemorate the day and bring awareness to the residential schools issue that occurred in Canada.
“Link leaders gave all the students in the school that day a wooden tile to decorate,” said Carrie Gilmour, Seaway DHS teacher and one of the staff supervisors for the Link program. “It was a great opportunity for the Link leaders to present to groups and help bring awareness to the issue of residential schools in Canada.”
Link leaders, a Grade 12 peer-mentoring program at the school, presented information on the residential schools issue in Canada to classes in the school, then asked students to each decorate a tile with what they thought about from what they had learned.
Students from Morrisburg Public and Iroquois Public schools were at Seaway on that day due to the Ross Video computer partnership announcement. They were involved in the mosaic project too.
“It’s great now that it’s assembled,” said Gilmour. “Students are going up and looking for their tile, looking at other’s work. Projects like this will help, hopefully, bring more awareness to the issue.”
Celebration of Orange Shirt Day is part of the First Nations, Inuit and Metis programming of the UCDSB. This year the school has three courses offered that integrate FNIM material into the curriculum including Art, History and English.