Students work to help victims of terrorism

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While many of us simply watched the horror of a terrorist attack occurring in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11 with shock and disbelief, a group of elementary school children in New Brunswick decided they would try to make a difference for the victims.

After viewing the destruction, students in teacher Gerry Duplessie's Grade 5/6 class at Eel Ground First Nation elementary school set up the Spirit of Canada's Native Children's Fund.

When the events of Sept. 11 began to unfold, explained the school's principal, Peter MacDonald, the students didn't have access to a television, but they did have access to the Internet. The older students gathered around the school's 20 or so computers, and watched the coverage online.

Students at the school are very comfortable with computers, MacDonald explained. Last year, the Grade 5/6 class entered a world cyberfair contest, earning a silver award for their efforts.

"The kids are pretty tuned in with the computers. That's where we watched it unfold . . . and they just felt like they should try and put something together.

"They got involved, and were able to watch the images that were coming on the screen, and it just kind of blew them away. And we ended up talking about, my God, the number of people that were in the building that were killed."

Then the students started talking about the children whose fathers and mothers had been lost.

Redsky Aboriginal Institute of Technology been assisting the school to set up the fund.

"We were talking about how many bodies dead, but they were talking about the families, and about the kids, and how sad it was to be watching this on television," said Ray Doucet, communications officer with Redsky. "So they kind of had that heart and that spirit far more than we did, in a sense. Because we were sort of were looking at it, and at the war thing that was coming, but they were not concerned about that at all. They were concerned about the people that were hurt, and the families that lost some of their own."

This isn't the first time the students at Eel Ground First Nation elementary school have put their time, money and effort toward helping others. A couple of years back, students worked to raise money to help the people of Sarajevo.

The students have already demonstrated their commitment to their latest project through their fund raising efforts, Doucet explained.

"The kids, on the first Friday, they went home for lunch, and they came back, and they already had $100," Doucet said. "They managed to scrape up the bottom of every little cookie jar they could find. It was quite touching."

In the first five days of having the fund up and running, kids from the school had already raised $450-an amount MacDonald expected would increase.

People from across Canada are invited to contribute to the fund, but a special emphasis is being placed on getting students from other First Nations schools across the country involved in the fundraising efforts. If a small school like Eel Ground First Nation elementary, which has about 75 kids enrolled, can do so much, then other First Nations schools should be able to do the same," MacDonald said.

The fundraising project is not only helping the American victims and their families, MacDonald explained, but it is also teaching the Eel Ground students an important lesson.

"The biggest thing, I think, is the kids realizing . . . it's a learning lesson for them, and they're learning what it takes to give from the heart and be able to help others. It's a lesson in life for them," he said. "I think it's a great lesson in life, just learning to give from within oneself."

To make a donation to the Spirit of Canada's Native Children's Fund, contact a Royal Bank in your area.