Students at Grand Forks Secondary School (GFSS) painted an Aboriginal art mural with a blessing ceremony held last Wednesday.
The mural is mounted in sections in the GFSS aboriginal education classroom and the process began last year said School District 51 (SD51) Aboriginal education instructor Wanda Hecht.
“I invited Terry Jackson, who is a well-known Métis artist on the other side of Rock Creek to design a mural that would allow students to put their artwork on it as well,” Hecht explained. “Terry came up with the design, that was on paper, we showed it to the advisory and it seems like everybody was happy with the design.”
Jackson said it was a long project that lasted about a year-and-a-half.
“We decided to do something that would include the students. That they would be part of it. (I) laid down a base that would encompass all the traditional cultures together,” said Jackson. “Something with the different heritages the kids coming to this school have.”
Jackson said different students would volunteer their time to come to the classroom to paint with GFSS Aboriginal enhancement worker Victoria Runge in helping them out.
Runge said that the number of students working on the mural increased as the project came along.
“Last year, there was only two or three that had seen it,” said Runge. “They became interested so we spent every Tuesday at lunch working the mural and this year as well. We had probably 10 or 12 students working on it at the end and even non-Aboriginal education students would join in.”
With a majority of blue, with yellow and red highlights, there is space for more designs and images to be added on in the future.
“I’m almost speechless,” said Boundary All Nations Aboriginal Council (BANAC) president Joan Holmes. “When I walked in here and saw it on the wall, it was just beautiful. I think the mural was a coming together of Aboriginal students and recognizing that they do belong in the school and that there is something here to be proud of.”
SD51 Superintendent Michael Strukoff said the mural and Aboriginal education are an important component of the school district.
“For our community, what surprised us, and surprised me personally, was to understand how many young people of Aboriginal descent we have. So when we’re running at 28 per cent of our student body having Aboriginal heritage and the fact that provincially, Aboriginal have not been successful in school or graduated, it’s been a really important push for us to focus in on them and encourage and assist our kids to graduate; this program is part of it.”
Strukoff said that last year, 93 per cent of the district’s Aboriginal students graduating, which he said far exceeded the provincial norms.