REGISTER HERE
Register for this free event to receive the Zoom link by email: https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/world-changing-kids-17548400912
SHORT DESCRIPTION
At this free, online meet-up we will learn more about the current over-representation of Indigenous children in child welfare services and the five Calls to Action on this issue from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report. Then we will write our own letters to send to the Prime Minister to tell him that we want these Calls to Action to be implemented.
Check out our Facebook event page here for more details.
You can also watch this video of me explaining more about this event to see if it might be something you are interested in!
FIRST WRITING LETTERS FOR RECONCILIATION ONLINE MEET-UP WAS A HUGE SUCCESS!
We held our first Writing Letters for Reconciliation Online Meet-up on July 29. We wrote letters to the Prime Minister asking for clean drinking water in all Indigenous communities. I prepared a template with suggested wording and inspiration for the kids and we walked through each step of the letter writing process together. The kids, as always, exceeded my expectations. They put so much of their own thoughts and feelings into their letters. They used stronger wording than I even proposed – demanding that this injustice be corrected. We are going to be in good hands when these kids are running the world.
Check out this video of one of the awesome kids – who is only 9 years old – reading his letter to our Prime Minister. You have to put your sound on to hear the fierceness and courage in this awesome kid’s voice.
MORE DETAILS
I am organizing this to hold myself accountable to writing this letter. Prior to our first Writing Letters for Reconciliation Online Meet-up on July 29, I had never written a letter to our Prime Minister about anything ever. I had meant to. It was on my to-do list. But it was hard. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how to address the Prime Minister, I didn’t know what the address was, I wanted to make sure I had all the facts 100% correct before I wrote my letter. So, I never wrote the letter. I thought that there are probably others in the same situation in relation to letter writing. We really mean to, but we don’t know where to start, and life gets busy and we don’t get around to writing that letter. My thinking was that if I organize these sessions and we all get together to do this, we will definitely do it.
To help us, I have put together a template for the letter that everyone can pick and choose wording from. I have the address we need to send it to – and you don’t even need a stamp! We will figure this out together.
This will be an amazing lesson for all the kids about the truth that the Prime Minister actually works for us – we have the power to tell him what we think his government should be working on. And if enough of us use our voices to say that we want changes to child welfare services made, he will listen.
This is an important lesson that David Robertson taught us when the kids in my Upstanders Academy got to interview him the other day – you can watch a clip from that interview here.
This will be even more powerful if these letters are written in the kids’ handwriting – and they can even draw a picture in their letter. I can’t wait to see what words these awesome kids choose and what their final letters look like.