Talk about a field trip — yesterday in Vancouver 16,000 students gathered to hear social activists, from the Dalai Lama and Mia Farrow to Jane Goodall, at We Day, founded by Free The Children, a Canadian youth movement that has created 500 education and development projects worldwide and involved more than a million children and teens in projects focused on social justice in Canada and overseas in six countries, including Kenya, China and Ecuador.
The group was founded by Craig Kielburger, who, at 12, read a newspaper story about the murder of a child laborer in Pakistan. Enlisting 11 friends at his Toronto school to help, he began this charity, which now holds We Day in Toronto and Vancouver every year, a full day of inspiration. Toronto’s will be held October 5, webcast from 9:10 to 2:30 EST.
The Vancouver Sun reported:
“Michael Berglund, 16, who boarded a bus in Kamloops at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday after working until 11:30 p.m. the night before at a restaurant, was too excited to be tired.The Dalai Lama’s speech about compassion in particular inspired him, he said. “In social justice class we learn to express ourselves and work toward a socially just society and getting rid of our prejudices.”
There are more than enough opportunities to work toward social justice in Kamloops itself, the high school student said.“We have a lot of homeless people, and more can be done to help them,” Berglund added…Seymour elementary school teacher Jeannie Kerr said learning about global social justice was important for her 24 Grade 6 and 7 students.“I want them to explore for themselves the sources of the global inequities, who has them and why,” Kerr said.
Were you taught social justice in grade school? What do you think of the idea?
Broadside 