This fall and winter, a class of Grade 12 students at Niverville Collegiate are raising awareness for a host of important causes. The students have enrolled in a course called Global Issues, which is designed to empower students to bring about change.
“The course is an elective for Grade 12 students in social studies,” says NCI teacher Adrienne Happychuk. “We choose to offer it because of its focus on global issues, awareness, and social justice.”
Global Issues 40S serves as a replacement for a previous World Issues course, which the government ultimately retired due to the new course’s improved focus on sustainability, citizenship, and bringing awareness to global issues.
Happychuk says she starts every class by asking a simple question: “How will you change the world for the better?”
A key part of the course encourages students to do just that. Each student is required to complete a Take Action project, which involves anything from volunteer work to fundraising for a local or global cause or creating awareness campaigns on global and social justice issues. The project, a mandatory component of the course, serves as their final assessment.
Justin Braun, 18, will fundraise to improve access to music education. “I love music, and I love making music,” he says. “One of the ways I’m raising money is by offering guitar lessons. I’m at a level in guitar where I can teach beginners, and I know people in Niverville who can’t afford it. That inspired me.”
Braun has been taking lessons since the age of eight, and he sees this as an opportunity to pay it forward. In addition to teaching guitar, Braun will also run a CD drive, collect unused and unwanted instruments, and accept donations.
Other students have pledged to raise money and awareness for diverse causes like cancer research, the Children’s Wish Foundation, Siloam Mission, orphans in Uganda, and the Winnipeg Humane Society. And that’s only a small sampling of the projects announced so far.
Braun says that when it comes to choosing a cause and planning a campaign, the possibilities are endless—but when it comes to making those plans a reality, the course offers accountability. “There’s lots of planning. If you’re raising books, you can’t just throw a box in a foyer somewhere that says ‘Books’ and get one book at the end of it. You have to have structure, a carefully written-out plan, an essay for why you’re doing it… and if it works. You can do whatever you want, but at the very end you have to present what you’ve done.”
Braun adds that he hopes to continue his endeavour beyond the school year.
“The objective of the course is to have youth learn about, understand, and think critically about global issues and social justice, and teach them about the importance of citizenship and social justice locally, nationally, and internationally,” says Happychuk. “The course is valuable because it helps them learn to become good global citizens and focus on issues beyond those that only affect themselves and to look beyond themselves to how they can make the world a better place.”
