[Indigsol] IPSMO member Sylvia Smith receives Governor General’s Award for educational project on residential schools

[ipsmo at riseup.net]

IPSMO member Sylvia Smith receives Governor General’s Award for
educational project on residential schools

http://www.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/9345
http://ipsmo.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/sylvia-smith-governor-generals-award/


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2011

OTTAWA – Sylvia Smith, for her work as coordinator of Project of Heart,
will be presented with a Governor General’s History Award for Excellence
in Teaching on Monday.

Project of Heart is a hands-on, collaborative, inter-generational,
inter-institutional artistic endeavour that commemorates the lives of the
thousands of Indigenous children who died as a result of the Indian
Residential School experience.

Participants have used the learning module to connect with a specific
residential school history and the Indigenous people whose traditional
territory the school was located on, and have shared the experience with
an Aboriginal elder and/or residential school survivor. Follow-up research
and social justice action is part of the process for each participant.

Smith founded Project of Heart in 2007 in collaboration with her students
at Elizabeth Wyn Wood Alternate High School Program in Ottawa, and over 50
schools, faith communities, and workplaces across Canada have since taken
part.

Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa (IPSMO) member Pei-Ju Wang
states, “We are very pleased to see this award recognizing the work that
Sylvia and others with Project of Heart have done to help non-Aboriginal
Canadians acknowledge, and take ownership and action for, the devastating
policy of residential schools that continues to have lasting effects on
Indigenous peoples here. Her contributions to our group’s work have
similarly been about moving people towards achieving justice,
understanding and healing in the relationship between the Canadian state
and the First Peoples of this land.”

Warren McBride, a fellow teacher at Elizabeth Wyn Wood, observes, “One of
the main attributes of Project of Heart is that it provides an opportunity
for students to apply their knowledge of the past to issues that are
continuing today. Sylvia has been able to create an educational experience
that has direct relevance to the news headlines of December 2011.”

Smith herself says, “Project of Heart is something that belongs to all who
embrace it.  Indeed, it is the collective aspect of the Project that gives
it its strength. I am honoured to be the name attached to it.”

CONTACT
ipsmo at riseup.net


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*MORE INFORMATION & RESOURCES*

- Project of Heart website: http://projectofheart.ca

- Governor General’s press release: http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=14374

- Canada’s History award profile (includes profile pic, and 15min audio
interview):
http://www.canadashistory.ca/Awards/Teaching/Articles/2011/Sylvia-Smith.aspx

- IPSMO website: http://www.ipsmo.org

- Video of Sylvia Smith as MC of an IPSMO event (Sept 2009, “The Epidemic
of Continuing Violence Against Indigenous Women”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4qd7S_M-w

- Photos of Sylvia Smith, from http://flickr.com/projectofheart
--- at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, #1:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectofheart/5091464439/in/set-72157625186918216
--- at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, #2:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectofheart/5091464439/in/set-72157625186918216
--- at Developing a Global Perspective for Educators, University of Ottawa
Faculty of Education, #1 (Sylvia at bottom right):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectofheart/6204705657/in/set-72157627802967566
--- at Developing a Global Perspective for Educators, University of Ottawa
Faculty of Education, #2 (Sylvia at bottom right):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectofheart/6204696707/in/set-72157627802967566