Children sing for the world

Page 29

More than 1,000 elementary students from northern communities in Saskatchewan are getting an opportunity to express themselves through song, and will receive a CD recording of their efforts as a permanent reminder of their achievements.

The students are taking part in the "Our Very Own Songs" project, initiated by Metis singer and songwriter Don Freed, and being run in co-operation with Saskatchewan Education and the Ile-a-la-Crosse School Division, which is representing school divisions and First Nations in 29 communities.

The project is the culmination of eight years of Freed's efforts, holding song-writing workshops during which the students come up with a theme and write the lyrics for their songs while Freed writes the music.

Freed has been involved in similar workshops across Saskatchewan, but this project is different in that the resulting recording will include songs written during workshops in the North over the past eight years. Freed estimated about 35 of the 40 songs on the CD will be songs written during past workshops, with about five from the newest round of workshops he's currently conducting.

"These are songs that I've been singing at different schools. The kids all know them. I can go away and I can come back two or three years later and the kids would still remember the songs. So I've got all these songs that kids have really taken to, and I certainly felt a responsibility to record them," Freed said, to "preserve it and create a legacy."

The "Our Very Own Songs" project has grown well beyond what Freed had initially set out to do eight years ago.

"When I first started doing this, I planned to only do it for a month. And then the phone kept ringing, and I kept on being asked to go back up north again," Freed explained. "Because, what teachers tell me is that they see kids smile for the first time. They see kids participate for the first time. They see kids come out of their shells. And so, when people call and say 'come up and do some more work with our kids,' of course I'm not going to say no."

In addition to the CD, the project will also include production of a CD-ROM, a songbook, and a web site. The workshops will be completed by the end of the year, with Freed to return to the schools to record the children singing their songs in the spring.

"That way it will become permanent in the education system," Freed said. "I think it would just be absolutely incredible . . . if in a number of years there were kids coming into the school system, learning songs that were written by their older siblings, or cousins, and, eventually, written by their parents or their aunts and uncles. That's got to have a good effect on a culture."

Freed said that, in northern communities, every house has a satellite dish, "so all these kids are connected with the rest of the world, but the rest of the world doesn't know anything about them. And usually what the rest of the world knows about them is either stereotypes or tragedy."

"When kids hear nothing but tragic stories about themselves, that can't have a good effect on them. So I'm trying to create a positive story. If kids up in northern Saskatchewan all of a sudden start getting e-mails from kids on the other side of the world, what's that going to do to them? Saying, 'We like your song. We're interested in you.' If that happens, that's got to have a positive effect on them," Freed said.

"The kids love the songs, and they have a sense of ownership, and a sense of empowerment: 'This is us.'"