Bruce-Grey CDSB students create amazing music video, celebrating their cultural identity and sharing a message of respect.

Students at St. Joseph’s Catholic school in Port Elgin recently worked with the N’we Jinan group to produce a song and music video entitled “Tie Our Spirits”.

Native Language Teacher, Natalka Pucan, and Principal, Keith Walsh, made the arrangements to partner with N’we Jinan, a music initiative that brings a mobile recording studio into schools and community centres across First Nation communities in Canada.

Their program is aimed to create an environment where youth can express themselves musically and creatively under the guidance of a professional music producer.

Participants learn about recording, music production, song writing, performance, marketing and design. Through the use of a mobile studio, original songs and videos are created, containing messages that focus on cultural identity, language, struggle, love and self-acceptance.

St. Joseph’s school celebrated the project with a Reveal Assembly on Friday March 22. The assembly was held at 2:00pm and featured the red carpet being rolled out for our Sr. Native Language class who created the video! We opened the assembly with a smudge to formally begin our celebration and then proceeded to honour our newly created school treaty. We then, called our students to the carpet before unveiling the video which is a tremendous accomplishment of students celebrating their indigenous culture.

N’we Jinan, whose name means "We Live Here" in James Bay (Eastern) Cree, is a nonprofit organization founded in 2014 and registered nationally in 2016. To date, more than 500 First Nations youth have participated across 40 communities, resulting in 80 songs and videos that have been viewed more than 15 million times online. Their mission of supporting student expression is achieved through respectful, decentralized learning models that recognize how much all parties stand to learn from one another.

To learn more, visit their website at http://nwejinan.com/

Students who took part: Mia Roote, Eric Capstick, Larissa Mason, Emma Mason, Ireland Solomon, Lucy D'Atri, Dominic D'Atri, Mackenzie Ritchie, Janelle Lenart, Quinntana Dowling and Gaige Cameron-Nashkewa.

source: media release, BGCDSB