Everyday they sit in their small portable ready to learn. Some days the furnace works, some days their jackets must stay on. With the winds of James Bay penetrating the cracks on the wall, they wonder when the government will give them a “real school.”
”I have never had class in a real school,” said Chris Kataquapit a Grade 8 student who has moved from one portable to another since Grade 1.
Kataquapit and his classmates have wondered for eight years now. For eight years they have walked from their portable to the gym through heavy snow and the extreme cold. For eight years they have shared their classroom with mice. For eight years they have been refused the right to learn in a safe and comfortable environment.
They are the forgotten children of Canada; they are the children of Attawapiskat Indian reserve.
”I don’t really like going to school in a portable.
”When I come out of gym class warm and sweaty, I get headaches from the cold,” said Kataquapit who dreams of one day playing for the Toronto Raptors basketball team.
The 13-year-old is one of 400 children who have never learned in a proper school. These children attend the only school in Canada made up solely of portables.
In 2000, the federal government built the portables as a temporary school for the children of Attawapiskat after parents removed them from their old school. The reason; the old elementary school was sitting on top of a diesel spill that took place in 1979. A government fuel line rupture left 30, 000 gallons of diesel seeping into the reserve’s soil.
According to Carinna Pellett, one of the school’s Grade 8 teacher, the Government only started cleaning the spill in 1995, and never finished the job.
”I am sitting on contaminated soil right now,” Pellett said over the phone from her portable that was once the “maintenance shed.”
She has been told by the elders that the oil has now made its way underneath the portables.
”151 thousand litres of oil are still underneath the ground,” she added.
Pellett, who spent more than two years working as a teacher in Kiribati, an impoverished island in the central tropical Pacific Ocean, says the conditions in Attawapiskat are not very different from the Third World.
”I went to Kiribati knowing it was a Third World country, I braced myself.
”I am still dealing with the same kinds of problems here, but now I am in my own country,” said Pellett as she looked outside through the 2 inch crack under her portable door.
She describes the schools current situation as “disgusting.” The teacher who has only been in Attawapiskat for four months already chokes up when she talks about the school’s condition and her students.
”I am going to try not to cry.
“I see so much good in these kids, so much potential,” Pellett said with her soft voice.
Unfortunately, the potential Pellet sees is diminished by the lack of resources these children live with.
”During our break at school we mostly just stand around, we don’t have a playground,” said Marvin Kioke.
A playground is not the only thing his “school” is missing.
”Our library is not really a library, it’s just a bunch of books in a pile,” said the 13-year-old who blames the low attendance of his class on the inadequacy of his learning environment.
”They (classmates) don’t like these portables.
”If we had a real school more kids would come to school,” said Kioke.
Pellett agrees with her student.
“My class is supposed to have 17 kids, but I have never seen all 17 at once,” said Pellett.
Just how low does attendance get when the thermometer dips to -45 for weeks?
“Each day there’s only five of us,” said Kioke. In 2005, the community was promised a new elementary school. It takes three years for the plans to get approved, so this winter construction was set to begin. The federal department of Indian and Northern Affairs told the residents of Attawapiskat all they had to do was prepare the land.
The community did everything they had to. This year the land was prepared, and the children were waiting anxiously for the construction of their new school to begin.
”When it came time for the government to do its part, they said ‘ we will talk about this in five years.’
”If they plan on talking about it in five years, that means Attawapiskat will have to wait eight more years for a new school,” said Pellett.
In December of 2007, the Federal Government broke off talks for a proposed elementary school. However, on April 1, community leaders met with senior representatives of Minister Chuck Strahl to discuss “steps for getting the school plan back on track.”
“We made it very clear to Indian Affairs that this school must be built and it will be built.
“After 8 long years, we want the government to take up their fiduciary responsibility to work with us as partners and not adversaries,” said Theresa Hall, Attawapiskat First Nation Chief.
The Chief says she is tired of only hearing her government “talk,” and wants to see action.
“Until we see the shovels going in the ground, we will continue to push forward,” said Hall.
The staff and students of Attawapiskat say they too will continue to push forward for their right to learn in a proper facility.
”Even when I go to high school, I will keep fighting for a new elementary school,” said Chris Kataquapit.
Kataquapit says he doesn’t want other students going through what he and his classmates have experienced for the last eight years.
”Walking outside in the cold sucks, especially for the little kids,” he added.
Even Ontario’s public school board is joining the fight. The board says it will encourage their 2.1 million students to write letters to the federal department of Indian and Northern Affairs to urge funding for a new school in this northern Cree community.
The hope is that the Federal Government will hear the plea from the future leaders of Canada and finally give the children of Attawapiskat what they deserve.
“These children are beautiful people; they have ideas, skills, and abilities which need to be encouraged and inspired as much as any other child in Canada.
“We need to provide them with a place where they are proud to go everyday,” said Pellett.
[...] Aboriginal children fight for a new school « Revolution #attawapiskat [...]