Trinity College School students continued their important work on truth and reconciliation with special learning sessions on Monday, December 13th, followed by a guest speaker on Wednesday, December 15th.

Monday afternoon, teachers led discussions following up on programming held during the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30th. Students were asked to reflect on what actions they had taken, or not taken, since that day to further truth and reconciliation. Then, classes watched the trailer for the documentary There’s Something in the Water and learned more about Indigenous connections to the water and the concept of environmental racism. Students had the opportunity to discuss these ideas and topics such as the link between human health and the environment. The 19th of 94 Calls to Action of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada specifically focuses on the need for the government to understand and set measurable goals related to Indigenous health outcomes.

Students also heard about the Watermark Project, an initiative to encourage people to share stories of their connection to water. Our Grade 8 students have been participating in this program for three years. Students concluded the afternoon by sharing their own watermark stories.

This work helped prepare students for Wednesday’s guest speaker, Autumn Peltier, an Anishinaabe Indigenous clean water advocate from the Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Ms. Peltier is known as a “water warrior” and Chief Water Commissioner of the Anishinabek Nation, and has spoken around the world on clean water issues, including addressing the United Nations on World Water Day when she was 13 years old. Now 17 years old, she is an inspiration of the role youth can play in activism.

Ms. Peltier spoke of how, at the age of 8, she was attending a water ceremony and saw signs indicating that the community was under a boil water advisory. This incident began her search to understand and take a stand against the environmental racism and colonialism at work in the clean-water issues facing Indigenous communities. She said to students, “One day you will get a feeling, and what will you do with that feeling? I always say that anyone can do this work.”

She asked students to think about how they feel, knowing that in Canada today there are so many Indigenous communities without access to clean water, a particularly horrible reality in the midst of a global pandemic. She explained that her work as a protector of the water has provided the impetus to become more involved in, and a greater advocate for, Indigenous rights. “We are trying to rebuild a nation that has had everything taken away from it.”

Throughout her presentation, Ms. Peltier reinforced the role all youth have in protecting the water and Mother Earth. “This is our future and we need to stand up and have a say.”