Students go mum for children
Shiva Ghorbanpur, left, Martin Shook and Michelle Chen don surgical masks symbolizing children whose voices are stifled in countries which deny basic human rights to their citizens. Woodlands Secondary School students raised awareness about human rights violations with a Vow of Silence Friday. For more, please see page 5.
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Updated: November 20, 2009 3:13 PM
The halls and classrooms at Woodlands Secondary School were unusually quiet on Friday.
More than 100 students – one-seventh of the student population – participated in the Vow of Silence, an annual international, one-day campaign to raise awareness about children around the world who are silenced because they are denied their basic rights.
From midnight Thursday to midnight Friday, the students experienced what it is like to not have a voice, as they didn’t speak, text or e-mail during that time.
To raise awareness further, students wore masks over their mouths with a large ‘X’ and the word silence written across it. The students were also armed with flyers explaining what they were doing and why.
Students and teachers spoke with the media on Thursday before the Vow of Silence began.
“I think it will be hard to do because we’re so used to our freedom here,” said Grade 12 student Shiva Ghorbanpour. “[Friday] is going to show us how they feel, put us in their shoes.”
Students in teacher Jan Durvin’s Grade 8 home economic class still learned how to make pizza Friday, but had to do it without verbal instructions from their teacher.
“They’re just going to have to watch very carefully,” she said. “I think it’s going to be very hard.”
About half a dozen teachers have agreed to participate and more have said they support the event but feel they can’t get through the day without speaking, Durvin added.
Martin Shook, student council co-president, said this is the first time Woodlands has held a Vow of Silence.
Students got the idea after attending the Me to We event in Vancouver, an annual celebration of the power of young people to change the world.
Friday was also the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Shook said while giving up talking for 24 hours will not be a stretch for him, giving up Facebook, e-mail and text messaging will be hard.
“We’ve set up a suggestion box and we’ll be asking people to tell us what they felt, what they got out of it,” he said.
Michelle Chen, student council co-president, said it will be interesting to experience what it’s like to be unable to express your needs to people when you desperately want to. “That’s definitely going to be a lesson for me,” she said.
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com
