“THROUGH A JOURNEY OF COLLABORATION
AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY LIFE WORKS CELEBRATES THE COMPLETION OF A YOUTH MURAL
PROJECT WITH THE BARSBY PATHWAYS STUDENTS AND LEAVES A LEGACY OF PRIDE AND
CONNECTION TO THEIR SCHOOL COMMUNITY.”
The Barsby Pathways students along
with Life Works program facilitators, Yvonne Vander Kooi and Heather Dean, and
teacher Michael Gray will be celebrating the completion of their mural project
on Thursday, June 21 beginning at 11:45AM with the larger school
community. The ribbon cutting ceremony will take place at the mural site outside
the Pathways classroom at John Barsby Community High School at
noon.
Life Works has been operating in the
Pathways program since October 2011 every Thursday afternoon. The students in
Pathways are a dynamic and energetic group of youth who are involved in an
alternative learning environment where they can receive extra support.
The
facilitators and classroom teacher have seen increased participation and
attendance by students due to the creative activities and dialogue throughout
the mural process. There has been a deeper involvement and exploration around
life skills and an increased sense of self-esteem as their skill building
improved and they took pride in the projects they completed during the mural
process.
The students have had the opportunity to dialogue around life skills
such as self-esteem, healthy relationships, healthy lifestyle choices, peer
pressure, stereotypes and racism and integrate their ideas and learning into the
image making process for the mural. Creative hands on activities such as;
stenciling, graffiti lettering, drawing exercises, super hero comic pages, and
large self-portraits on canvas all contributed to the overall project of the
mural.
The mural is a large scale, colourful, dynamic and youth driven collage
of images and text that speaks to what is important to them and highlights
messages that speak to their hopes and dreams, values, community, friendship,
the environment, learning, curiosity and to the unpredictable and zany nature of
life. Other students and teachers in the school have watched the painting of the
mural and have expressed their enthusiasm and support. The community legacy
component to the school based mural offers the students an opportunity to
showcase their work to the school community and experience a sense of
accomplishment, pride and place.
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