DuhARRRam Student Day

Captain's Log

November 24th - Lviv Hall, Oshawa: the third Student Day

Up up early in the morning for the last Student Day.  174 students filled the hall today - 7 schools from DCDSB and 6 from PVNCCDSB. They were all treated to a final rocking performance by Derek Forgie.  He offered to come out and speak at any of the schools attending to support them in taking the campaign back to their peers.  You can contact Derek at Derek.Forgie@ctv.ca

The one element of the Student Days not yet described is the Indonesian Simulesian.  Students were transported to Central Java Indonesia where CCODP provides financial support to our partner KruHa. KruHa is a network of Indonesian NGOs that support community efforts to keep community water in comunity hands. You can read about them in our campaign tabloid. We simulated a village meeting where they had to decide whether to keep ownership and control of a spring on their land or sell it to a bottled water company.  Playing the devil's advocate role and adovcating the sale of the spring were their own teachers.  Needless to say, students voted heavily in favour of keeping control of the spring.

Indonesia is the second largest bottled water market in Asia. For many people in the country, drinking bottled water is not a choice, unlike for us.  Placed before us is a development question:  should we be working with people in the Global South to develop water infrastructure systems and promote environmental stewardship of water resources ? Or should we take control of the clean water sources that exist, stick it in bottles and sell it to them for large profits?

Pirates, we need you to build those ships now more than ever.

PS. The river is now huge.

ToARRRonto Student Day

Captain's Log

November 17th - St. Bonnies Parish Hall, Toronto: the second Student Day.

Students began the morning building small bottled water pirate ships - prototypes for bigger things to come!

Derek Forgie was in fine form again today.  So were the students of TCDSB and YCDSB. The question period went well over the allotted time.

The students own knowledge was further deepened by watching  "The Story of Bottled Water" and they enjoyed our own "D&P Cartoon"

The pedometer went over well again, hitting the mark with 6.16 KM.  Should I say that if we are really going to show what it's like for women fetching water in the Global South that they should be carrying a large container full of water for half the distance?

The whole point of the pedometer excercise is to encourage students to use creative methods to share information back in their own schools.  In the afternoon students broke into mixed school groups for 3 activities: a) come up with a creative way to present a fact about bottled water b) create a cartoon to illustrate the issue c) come up with a skit that you can do in front of a vending machine that sells bottled water.  These are just three techniques they will use to educate and mobilize their school communities.

Many pirates joined up with the Water Commodification Resistance today! A great day on the high seas as the river of justice grows larger each day. We were even covered by the Toronto Observer.

DuffARRRRin Peel Student Day

Captain's Log

November 9th - Fr. Goetz S.S. Mississauga: the first Student Day.



Derek Forgie spreads the word!



With all but a few of the board's 26 high schools represented, the crowd at Fr. Michael Goetz high school was a large one.  The day kicked off with a presentation by Derek Forgie from MTV Canada. He had everyone laughing but also thinking about our consumption of bottled water. "Did anyone stop to think that evian is naive spelled backwards?" he asked.

taste test time

We watched as student volunteers failed his 'tap water taste test.'  It's pretty clear that tap water tastes just about the same as bottled water products.

Warmed up by Derek's presentation, students then learned about the July 28th UN declaration on access to clean water as a human right.  They heard that 884 million people in our world today do not enjoy that right.  If water is a god-given gift for all, this is a challenge to our very humanity.

One student, Tiffany, was ready to oblige me when I asked for a drink of water.  She was a bit surprised when I gave her the pedometer and asked her not to bring me the water until it read 6km.  This is how far women in the Global South can have to walk in order to get water for their families.  Everyone cheered when she proudly came back sometime later with the proof on the pedometer. She was awarded a Life before Profit T-shirt for her efforts.

Judging by the hearty response to my question, "Be thar any pirates in this here room?" I think we can expect a good fleet from the Dufferin Peel board.  They were happy to take a share of the pledge card booty I brought with me in my black chest. I expect they will now be getting busy building the finest ships in the land!

Many thanks goes to the school board for their support of this day.  The most special thanks though goes to the students of the SOWHAT club at Fr. Goetz.  If anyone says you did less than awesome in organizing the conference they can walk the plank!

Dear pirates of the water commodification resistance (WCR)

We at CCODP may not have a face to launch a thousand ships, but that is more or less what we are aiming to do with schools in the archdiocese of Toronto and the diocese of Peterborough.

Let me elaborate: between November 9th and November 24th our local educator's group held three student days covering five schools boards.  The Student Days, as we call them, are  particularly close to my heart.  It was at one of these days some fifteen years ago that I was introduced to Development and Peace.  As a grade 11 student I was a participant - now I get to help organize and lead them!

pledge in a bottle

Over the course of this year's student days, over 400 high school students were empowered to carry out our "Water for All! Let Justice Flow" campaign back in their schools.  Each school has been invited to collect discarded plastic water bottles and to build pirate ships out of them, an idea I wrote about in my last post.

These school ships will sail to special gathering places in and around March 10th 2011- Bottled Water Free Day.  They will carry a message in a bottle, signed pledge cards showing the commitment of students everywhere to keeping water a god-given gift for all.

So much happened at the three student days that I am sharing my pirate's log entry for each of them.

Your Truly,

Captain Luke Silver, WCR



Groundswell...the day we imagined pirate ships...

All Souls Day this year was also the D&P Educator's day.  On Nov. 1st over fifty educator's from across the archdiocese gathered at St. Bonaventure's parish hall to hear from ALCDSB trustee John Brisbois.  They came to hear how the ALCDSB became one of the only school boards in the entire country to have a board-wide policy banning bottled water.  John is a retired educator with over thirty years experience.  He is a long-time D&P member and did a stint on our National Council.

Schools are probably the hardest spaces to create bottled-water free zones.  Vending machines bring in much needed extra money for school sports teams, bands, choirs, and all manner of extra-curricular activities.  They are also an easy fundraiser.  John shared that he too had sold bottled water through the school without much thought in the past.  That changed when educator's got board approval to form a board-wide social justice committee.  That committee decided to take on the bottled water issue.  Over three years they did all kinds of work educating students about bottled water.  In this way they created a groundswell of support which eventually culminated in the board-wide policy passed January 29th 2009.  John believes the campaign was successful because it was run bottom-up instead of top-down.

Of course it wouldn't be a campaign workshop without an appearance by the D&P supersoaker, which vigilantly denies people access to clean drinking water at all our workshops.  This time Sylvia Skrepichuk did the honours, I was the victim and it was caught on film.

"ACCESS DENIED"

In break-out groups participants brainstormed how our school boards in the Archdiocese of Toronto could create a similar groundswell to that in ALCDSB and eventually go bottled water free.  These ideas were then developed further in the educator's group mtg. following the workshop (i.e. the day's planning committee).

One school when taking on this issue in the past had created a pirate ship out of discarded water bottles.  We soon hit on the idea to have each school create one of these ships.  Each school's ship will carry signed D&P pledges from the student body to the board office on Bottled Water Free Day, March 10th, 2011.  Our idea is to raise this armada and deliver a "Message in a Bottle"  - Students want to work with school board leaders to create bottled water free zones!  The first student day is November 9th for Dufferin-Peel. Ship's Ahoy!

Getting Good Mileage in Kingston

October 30th the newly active Kingston Archdiocesan Council hosted a campaign workshop at the diocesan centre in Kingston.  The council was very happy with the turnout - twenty more drops added to our river of justice. Congratulations to all who helped make it a success!

A most interesting exchange happened as Belleville participants asked those gathered what could be done about their tap water, which has a pretty bad reputation.  Many choose bottled water because of this.  Another participant from Kingston related how his city had made large investments in filtration systems to improve the quality of the tap water.  Could Belleville get their leaders to talk to folks from Kingston for ideas he wondered?  Also, KFL&A Public health has a new initiative called Tap into Kingston. The initiative aims  at promoting tap water and includes a map of local businesses, convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants, and cafes that let people in the community fill their reusable water bottle with great tasting tap water.

The discussion highlighted for me the importance of how the D&P pledge is worded.  The pledge stresses support for Public Water utilities before it talks about choosing tap water over bottled water.  An integral part of choosing the tap is to protect it. If you want to know about your area's tap water, the provincial government has a good website to do some research.

During the workshop we collect creative ideas about how to communicate facts about water taken from our action sheet.  One of my favourites: An Announcement could be made at mass that, due to health & safety concerns, all Holy Water in the church will be replaced by bottled water.  As a result, you must place a penny in a jar each time you bless yourself in an effort to off-set the cost.

That Saturday I travelled about 500KM. I was struck by a thought en route home as I filled up at  a road-side gas station: how much would it cost me if I was filling my tank with bottled water instead of gas? It had already been pointed out to me that bottled water is more expensive than gas.  When I got home I did some math.  My bill at that station was $30.89 for 31.045L (.995/L HST inc)  The McDonalds right by my office sells Dasani for 1.79/500ml plus tax.  By my calculations, if I had filled my gas tank up with Dasani bottled water it would have cost me $128.58.  Ouch.  

Fill the car with gas.

Fill the car with Dasani

"Have you Seen the Drinking Fountain Here?"

"Have you seen the Drinking Fountain Here?"  asks Colin - Kaitlyn Zarzour.  Colin is a Student Trustee with the Durham Catholic District School Board.  I've been invited here by Colin to speak at the monthly student senate meeting he co-chairs at the board office.  We pause my presentation on our Water Campaign right at the point I am talking about drinking fountains in schools.  When else do you get to stop a meeting and run out of the room to check out a drinking fountain? Awesome.  Within minutes I'm introduced by Colin to the Elkay EZH2O bottle filling station just outside the meeting room.  The board office installed the drinking fountain as part of their efforts to reduce the consumption of bottled water. This filling station actually counts the number of plastic bottles diverted from waste management systems through its use.

Colin and the rest of the senate are planning to make Water the broad theme of a board-wide initiative this year.  Creative ideas flow from the students as they brainstorm ways to make this campaign a reality. We at Development and Peace are ready to walk with them!  November 24th will be our annual Student Day for high schools in Durham.  Incidently, it was at this very day some fifteen odd years ago (when D&P was focused on the issue of sweat shops)  that I first became aquainted with Development and Peace as a high school student at St. Mary in Pickering.  Now Colin and the rest of the student senate are carrying the torch and burning bright.