Students at North Queens Community School will mark International Women’s Day with a special project.
Over the past few months Grade 9 students from the citizenship education class, gathered 80 dresses as a spin off of the RED Dress Project to draw attention to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
Teacher Julie Ramey says the project struck a chord with the community.
“People have driven dresses from Halifax to Yarmouth and every point in between, we’ve people bring them to the school, we’ve had folks drop them off throughout places in Liverpool and Caledonia, we had local thrift shops donating dresses.”
The South Shore Regional Centre for Education also got in on the project and most high schools in the region will be doing their own displays as well.
Ramey says the local Mi’kmaq community has also been supportive of the project.
“They’ve very much been a part of the process with us, we actually got to see this morning a dress that some of the folks at Wildcat have made specially for the event Friday evening, so they hand sewed a dress and did some lovely artwork that is in keeping with our Mi’kmaq culture.”
Ramey says this project is particularly important to her because the school does not have a Mi’kmaq studies class, like many in Nova Scotia do.
She says her students were shocked to learn about the issues facing indigenous women and girls across Canada.
According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada between 1997 and 2000, the homicide rate for Indigenous women was nearly seven times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous women.
Along with the red dresses, the students also placed signs highlighting some of these facts for the public.
The North Queens students also met with MP Bernadette Jordan, who stopped by to see the displays.
The students asked her about what the federal government is doing about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.
Jordan pointed to the inquiry launched by the Liberals in 2015 as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
But she says there’s still much to do.
After meeting with students Jordan noted she can’t attend the ceremony but hopes many do.
“This is something that is so important but I’m very excited to hear that they’ve got great community support and there’s going to be a lot of people here and I hope people make an effort to come out and see what they’ve done.”
Jordan says she was impressed by the students work and their engagement in the issue.
A ceremony is set for 6:30 p.m. Friday at Miriam Hunt Park in Caledonia, with refreshments at the masonic lodge to follow.
The dresses will be displayed at Miriam Hunt Park, North Queens Community School, and Wildcat First Nations Reserve for the next couple of weeks.
Story by Brittany Wentzell
Twitter: @BrittWentzell
Email: wentzell.brittany@radioabl.ca
