Stories of ReconciliACTION
Since launching in October 2021, thousands of GGC units have participated in our 2021-2023 National Service Project: ReconciliACTIONs, developed in partnership with the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (DWF). Here are some of the stories we’ve seen.
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130th Mississauga Pathfinders
The 130th Mississauga Pathfinders has close ties with the Indigenous community through one of their members and wanted to do something impactful for this service project. After watching The Secret Path and discussing Chanie Wenjack’s story, they had a long discussion about the idea of home, because Chanie wanted to go home.
What does home mean? They decided to make a quilt, each panel with the answer to that question, to illustrate the idea of warmth that Chanie was looking for. The quilt also included a border of striped fabric to represent to railroad lines, a white border to represent the cold and separation Chanie experienced, and orange to represent the warmth of the matches that Chanie burned as well as to honour Every Child Matters.
1st Eastern Passage Brownies
The 1st Eastern Passage Brownies read two Indigenous stories - The Sharing Circle by Theresa Larsen-Jonasson and Thundermaker by Alan Syliboy – and a book of Mi’kmaq words for animals. They made a word search of Mi’kmaq words for animals from the book and looked up more that the Brownies wanted to know using the Mi’kmaq language app L’nui’suti. The Brownies also chose an animal and made a painting of them, and labelled them with the Mi’kmaq word.
The 2nd Monarch Guides
The 2nd Monarch Guides learned about Traditional Ecological Knowledge as a way to explore the natural environment, learned about languages and lands. They had a tour from Chief Antoine of Bonaparte First Nation, saw traditional land markings, learned about traditional fauna, and listened to stories and songs. After learning about the importance of the land, the Guides decided to pick up garbage on the shoreline of a community park as their reconciliACTION.