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CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
'They're like my kids': Mi'kmaw elder stitching together high school memories
Mi'kmaw Elder Nancy (Nano) Bernard has stitched her way into the fabric of Wagmatcook First Nation's history. Every year, a half-dozen of Bernard's quilts are taken out of storage and hung up at Wagmatcookewey School's graduation ceremony as part of a tradition in the Cape Breton community that's now lasted more than 30 years. The quilts are made up of large squares featuring the community's high school graduates that have been sewn onto eight-pointed stars. Since she started making the quilts, Bernard has created more than 200 squares, representing the number of high school graduates in the community over that period. "[It's] just something for them to see year after year," she said. "Some of these graduates have their own families now. It's a good feeling." Bernard, now 82, began the project in 1992. Back then, she only had one graduate's picture to transfer onto fabric. She sews the patches by hand and has designed the quilts using the traditional medicine wheel colours of black, white, red and yellow. Each square takes an hour to finish. Kelly Marshall, a 1996 graduate who is featured on one of the quilts, is now a career navigator at Wagmatcookewey School. "We still snap a picture every year," she said at a recent graduation ceremony. "[You] just don't realize how time went by so fast since we all graduated, and the kids love it. Like next year's grads will be looking forward to seeing all this." Brittany Fitzgerald, a literacy teacher at the school, can also be found on one of Bernard's quilts. She expects to soon see her children's pictures among the graduates. She said the number of patches added each year depends on the number of graduates in the community. "The quilts aren't necessarily one quilt per year, they're just a continuous addition and then when she runs out of space, a new quilt is started again. It's something that's become like a cultural part of our community. It's sort of a symbol of all the hard work of graduates and of our elder as well." Tracy MacNeil, an English teacher at Wagmatcookewey, said Bernard not only creates quilts and dreamcatchers for the community's graduates, she also serves as the school's elder and guidance counsellor. "She's very humble, so she brings humility to our school and there's a calmness about her, a peacefulness about her for sure. I've heard many stories over the years of her working late into the night, trying to complete [her quilts] and get it done on time." Bernard now enjoys watching generations of graduates come out to see her quilts. "Yeah, some of these graduates are moms and dads and grandmas and granddads, some of them are fishermen," she said. "They're all working. I'm proud of them all. They're like my kids."
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Wabana water upgrades a 'dream come true' after a decades-long boil order
An unhealthy municipal water system in the Bell Island community of Wabana is slowly being rid of contaminants like arsenic, manganese and iron, with 150 households being removed this week from a quarter-century-old boil order. Town leaders surprised more than 160 residents with the news during a volunteer appreciation dinner on Wednesday night. "The room went up," said Linda Spencer, a widow who has lived on Valley Hill Road since the early 1970s, and has struggled to keep potable drinking water in her home. Phase 3 of an expensive water system upgrade is complete, with new wells, pumps, filters and pipes, and testing shows the water meets Canadian drinking water guidelines. That means about 250 residents — many of whom are elderly — who live in 150 homes in an area of town known as The Green and The Valley can now turn on their taps and pour up a glass of clear, safe water. "It's a dream come true," said Spencer, who described the water pouring from her tap on Thursday as "amazing, wonderful." WATCH | The water used to look like motor oil. Not anymore: Cheers! After 25 years, hundreds of Wabana residents are drinking water — right out of the tap 12 hours ago Duration 2:22 They join about 200 other households who were connected to a new water supply in earlier phases of the upgrade. Phase 4 is also underway, with dozens more homes in an area known as The Front expected to receive a fresh supply of water later this year. So far, nearly $7 million has been spent on upgrades, said Mayor Philip Tobin, with the town paying a 10 per cent share. The provincial and federal governments covered most of the cost. "To finally get here now to this day and say we can lift this order is amazing to be a part of," Tobin told CBC News on Thursday. A stain on the town's reputation The drinking water problem has been a stain on Wabana's reputation for an entire generation. Residents were tired of turning on their taps and seeing a liquid that resembled cola or motor oil splattering into their sinks, and clothes sometimes looking dirtier when it emerged from the washer. For years, residents like Spencer have been forced to trek — with empty water jugs and buckets in hand — to a dispensing station in the centre of town for clean water. And that poses a big problem if you're elderly and you don't have a vehicle, and you have to depend on others, said Spencer. "It was not easy to get water," she on Thursday morning, Spencer went to her kitchen and felt great relief at being able to turn on her tap, and know the water was safe to drink, and that she no longer has to worry about fetching water. "I'm really, really happy," she said. A succession of municipal leaders have lobbied for financial assistance from the federal and provincial governments, and money finally started to flow in recent years. Tobin gave credit to previous leaders, especially the late Gary Gosine, who passed away in June and served for 30 years as mayor. "He played a big role in getting this accomplished," Tobin said of Gosine. Tobin estimates that nearly $7 million has so far been invested in the water system, but the job is not done. He expects it will be another three or four years before every household in the town of roughly 1,800 residents is connected, and one of the longest running boil water orders in the country is fully lifted.
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
How some students with disabilities avoid the 'transition cliff' after high school
For the past 10 months, Toronto student Danial Young rose at 6 a.m. on weekdays to attend a program vastly different from what he'd known, leaving friends and familiar teachers behind as he ventured into new spaces and was challenged to develop new skills. Yet on a sweltering day in late June, as the 20-year-old turned the page on high school, you couldn't wipe the smile off his face. "It's been very important to learn here, because you're moving into the real world. You're now evolving into this whole different person," he said ahead of graduating from Project Search, a program that transitions young people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to the working world. "It's been a really great experience." As they move through secondary school, most teens are busy learning, training for and planning their futures. Yet students with disabilities have vastly fewer opportunities. A patchwork of programs helps some transition into adulthood, but experts want more of these offerings to be accessible to everyone who needs them. Leaving high school is "a time of big change and big decisions, but also it's potentially a time of crisis," said Eddie Bartnik, an international consultant advising the Nova Scotia government on disability services. Without a strong, dedicated program planning for life after graduation, youths with disabilities can lose the valuable relationships and social connections they've built during their schooling, he says. It can also leave families feeling adrift as, after school-related supports end, some young people languish at home. Sometimes "one parent has to give up work," Bartnik said, an option that is "very anxiety-provoking." Transition programs are generally considered a responsibility of schools, according to Rachelle Hole, a UBC Okanagan professor of social work and co-director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship. However, since they're not mandated by every province or territory's Ministry of Education, such efforts are often "left up to the individual school districts or perhaps inclusive education teachers," she said. Limited funding means some programs can only take on so many participants and, given what she calls "a patchwork approach" across regions, many families can face a "transition cliff" if they're unable to access aid to bridge the gap. Still, Hole praises the "pockets of excellence" across Canada, where different organizations, community groups and champions are successfully helping youth with disabilities tackle this milestone. 'The right mix of ingredients' Come September, eight new Project Search locations in Ontario will join the existing 22 across the province plus P.E.I. and Manitoba. The immersive model, followed by hundreds of branches worldwide, is designed to give participants enough time, space, clear instruction and support to build their technical and soft skills for workplaces, says Carolyn McDougall, the program's Ontario-Canada co-ordinator. Locations typically receive funding and support from participating businesses, school boards, disability organizations and charities, employment agencies, private donors and foundations. "Individuals with significant disabilities are capable of complex and systematic work when they have the right kind of components in their training," said McDougall, who's also manager of employment pathway programs at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. "You just need the right mix of ingredients." Young people with disabilities don't often get a chance at the experiential learning — co-ops, volunteering or part-time jobs, for instance — that their peers do. That means less direction after high school, says McDougall, but also "a heck of a lot less on your resumé and... so programs like this are so essential." For instance, Young — a fan of '90s-era Jim Carrey movies — says he's learned to rein in the jokes and be more professional at work. With practice, he's also learned to make eye contact, about the importance of body language and tips for talking to new people, as well as learning workplace hazards systems and how to complete paperwork. "I've learned how to be confident and really adapt… how to not rush a task that was given," he said. He's also tried jobs he never knew about, like being a hospital porter. "I didn't think working in a hospital would be an environment I could join." Project Search reports a nearly 68 per cent employment rate for graduates in Canada which, McDougall notes, is more than double the national employment rate (about 27 per cent) for individuals with a significant disability. Starting early Hole, the UBC professor, has developed a free, online, transition-planning program for school districts that's set to debut this fall. She says having transition programs in the final year of high school is helpful, but that evidence from the U.S. shows that starting earlier gets even better results. It's also vital for these programs to have co-ordinated funding from various ministries of the provincial and territorial governments, she says: education, but also health, labour, accessibility, social development and family services. That's "really key for the transition process to be experienced in a fluid kind of way." In September, Nova Scotia will kick off its School Leavers Program, connecting 100 students with disabilities with local specialists to develop post-graduation plans. It's part of a broader reform, following a landmark legal battle between the province and Nova Scotians with disabilities. The program includes flexible, individualized funding, which might go to hiring support for workplace training, enrolling in a special swim class or transportation for a particular community offering, says Scott Armstrong, Nova Scotia's minister of opportunities and social development. "We've taken the best practices we've seen in other places and put them into the program," he said. "We really think we're on the right track." Armstrong anticipates the second cohort will double to 200 students and the program could eventually begin earlier. "Fifteen years old is a good time to start planning," said the former school principal. Jordan O'Neal, a Project Search alumnus, returned for this year's graduation as a speaker. The program got him pondering the future: how to further his interest in computers, get his own place and be more independent. One achievement his mother, Brendora Paul, is especially proud of is the 22-year-old taking public transit solo when he'd previously only travelled by school bus or with his parents. "[Before] it was out of the question for him to travel alone," she said, whereas today he travels from home in the eastern suburb of Scarborough to his clothing retail job in downtown Toronto. "Now we're confident... he can get from point A to point B."
