Save nature school
The announcement to end our village has made it very clear to me how much of a force of nature Q’shintul Mill Bay Nature School actually is — that our neurodiverse friendly, mother nature loving, decolonizing, child centreing, restorative justice minds and hearts are here for you — we are a resource, a human resource, and the world desperately needs communities like ours! Justin Trudeau just said in Victoria that “we need to support problem solvers, innovators and researchers” in his announcement for increasing funds for university students. Well, we already have that going on at QMBNS elementary!
I asked SD79 trustees if they knew what the term ‘village of attachment’ meant? We are living it, I promise you we are actually living this and guess how we got there? Our Elders in residence! They gave us a sacred gift of how to re-village. Did you hear what our late Elder said in the two documentaries about our school? He said we are doing it, he saw us as re-villaging. It’s in the shared knowledge of our community, in our bodies, minds and hearts. If you separate us out, the village is gone! It’s like an ecosystem, if you forcefully tear it apart it takes ages for it to repair and start all over again. That’s why it feels so intense to us! My body has actually been shaking from the stress of it and I know more than 30 people who need counseling to get through this. I’m not being dramatic here, seriously, the thought of this school closing is literally causing huge amounts of mental health concerns.
I honestly see that our work to save QMBNS is becoming a movement, we currently have 1,400 signatures on our petition and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Erin Ward
Parent Committee Member at QMBNS