A group of Grade 7 students in Calgary is calling on all levels of government to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday by giving First Nations communities across the country the gift of clean water.
Denise Hammond and her humanities classmates at Ian Bazalgette junior high school have spent almost the entire school year researching, writing letters to government officials and fundraising for their cause, which they’re calling the Clean Water Birthday Project.
WATCH: New report says federal government not doing enough to address First Nations water crisis “Our mission is to try to get awareness out about the more than 100 First Nations communities in Canada that do not have access to clean drinking water,” Hammond said.
It’s already been going on for some places more than 20 years, so we’re hoping that if we get enough awareness out there that the government will actually take action and get it resolved by the end of 2017.” Getting the project started It all started after Hammond showed her students two short documentaries highlighting the lack of access to clean water on First Nations.
They wrote the exact same thing to everyone, and it was pretty off topic,” Jordan Milligan, one of the students involved, said.
“I think what’s going to happen is [the kids are] going to look differently at bad situations,” Winslow added.
READ MORE: Many First Nations communities without access to clean drinking water Hammond admits her students have been discouraged at times, but that despite the failures, the kids continue to work towards their goal.
Like someone sharing our stuff on Facebook, or getting 10 more people clicking one of our links – these are still successes,” Hammond said.
So we can try.” Hope for the future The school year is almost over for the students, but their teacher is planning on keeping the project going.
“I hope [people] consider that others don’t have clean drinking water, and do something about it.