Peace Diaries Workspace

II. Canada
	Chapter 3: Mount Currie, British Columbia Xit’olacw Community School Teacher: Liz Barrett

Grade 10 and 11 groups

How we would improve the quality of life in Mount Currie:

If we were elected Chief and council of our community there are many things that we students would do to bring about change. Drugs and alcohol are very destructive to all families. It is destroying our people and so we would like to see all the bootleggers shut down and arrested and those that sell drugs should also be punished and removed from this area. They have no place within our community.

We would focus on the youth and what they do during and after school. If you want a healthy community you have to look after the health and welfare of the people who live there.

The students want to play all sorts of sport and we really need to have the funding to be able to compete in our teams and in leagues. We are always having to fund raise so that we can go and play against other teams and this is very difficult to do.

We really do need more coaches and facilities as so many of us want to participate in sport. When we are part of a team we really care about our health and we do not want to have anything to do with drugs or alcohol. We would also like to say that we are opposed to parents taking sport away as a punishment - if a student is part of a team and this punishment is used, it affects us all and often the parent just uses this as a weapon against the student.

As a group we also think we should have a school uniform for our teams so that we look good when we compete against other schools - a team uniform is something that gives identity and is something to be proud of. The younger children need to have good sports coaching to develop them and make them aware of their fitness and health. Maybe some of the high school students could be trained as coaches for younger students.

We also feel that our community really needs to have a full gym where we can workout and keep fit. In summer it gets very hot here in Mount Currie and our community could really use a swimming pool.

On the weekends students get bored as we have very little to do and so a youth center would be great - a place where we could all hang out. We would really like to be able to attend summer camps but we do not have any funding for this and it is expensive and so parents cannot afford it.

We would also change our school so that the work was more challenging and that we had more courses choices that we could do. We need urgent funding so that we can have courses that can teach us skills like woodworking shop and home economics.

We are also very concerned about how our community looks. Some people take no pride in the areas around their homes. We think that we should get volunteers from our community to do a major clean up. We need to get rid of all the scrap that lies around. Once that is done we would introduce a rule that you cannot litter any more and if you do you will be heavily fined.

We would also get people to look after their dogs and be responsible for them on garbage collection day. The dogs tear holes in the garbage and create a mess that is never cleaned up. Everyone has to work together to make a difference to the way in which we live because everyone deserves a good quality of life.