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May 12, 2006
Message of tolerance
Survivors speak at school's Diversity Week.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Last week, Comox Valley's Vanier Secondary School held its first
annual Diversity Week. As part of the event, every student and teacher
reaffirmed their Canadian citizenship and attended various workshops
and lectures, including presentations by Holocaust survivor Robbie
Waisman and residential school survivor Chief Robert Joseph, who
recounted their personal stories of lives changed by hate and racism.
Waisman and Joseph participated as speakers at the behest of Canadian
Jewish Congress, Pacific Region (CJCPR), which acts as a resource
and co-ordinator for programs such as this one. In recent months,
CJCPR has taken speakers to Sooke and assisted with the organization
of the Yom Hashoah commemoration at the B.C. Legislature. Congress
was contacted by the Comox RCMP and Vanier's Parents' Advisory Council
about the possibility of bringing an anti-racism program to the
school.
"The motivation by the RCMP and Vanier school came late last
year when staff, students and parents were dismayed to discover
racist graffiti in a washroom and on tables at the school,"
Jeffrey Bradshaw, education director for CJCPR, told the Independent
in an e-mail interview. "In the end, the Parents' Advisory
Council created a Diversity Week, where cultural difference, multiculturalism
and racism would be explored. A committee made up of staff, students
and parents developed the week as a proactive approach to creating
a more peaceful school environment."
Waisman was born in Skarszysko, Poland, and is the youngest of six
children. He was 10 years old when the Nazis invaded his town and
was 14 when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp.
Waisman immigrated to Canada as part of the Canadian War Orphans
Project, which saw the admittance of more than 1,000 Jewish children
to Canada. He has done much community work and is an officer of
CJCPR.
Joseph is a hereditary chief of the Gwa wa enuk First Nation. He
spent 10 years at St. Michael's Indian Residential School at Alert
Bay on the central coast of British Columbia. Upon entering this
school, at age six, he only spoke Kwa Kwala and was beaten many
times for speaking his own language, as well as having to endure
other hardship and abuse. This experience inspired him to assist
aboriginals in seeking hope, healing and reconciliation and he has
spent most of his working life as an advocate for aboriginal people.
He is currently executive director for the Indian Residential School
Survivors Society.
At Vanier school, Waisman and Joseph each spoke at a 75-minute assembly.
"Their general message was that hate has no place in our hearts
and minds," said Bradshaw. "The Holocaust and the residential
school system both sought to divide humanity. Their message is that
we must learn from the horrors of our past to move forward."
The students were affected by what they heard. They were "glued
to their seats," said Bradshaw. "Many were visibly moved.
I had a few teachers and administrators approach me following the
presentation with tears in their eyes.
"At the end of the presentation, Mr. Waisman asked everyone
to go home and practise love and tolerance to their families,"
Bradshaw continued. "We had students come up to us afterwards
and say that they will never take their families for granted again.
One student approached Chief Joseph and thanked him for his presentation
and told him how important it was for his classmates to hear his
message of tolerance and respect."
Congress will continue partnering with Holocaust survivors and members
of the aboriginal community to create such programs, added Bradshaw.
"The members of the survivor communities continue to tell their
painful stories to effect positive change in younger generations,"
he noted. "This is a great source of pride for our community."
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