A longtime Project of Heart collaborator has shared some very useful and timely news with us today. Here’s Lisa Howell, an educator located on unceded, unsurrendered, ancestral lands of the Algonquin people in Ottawa:
 

For virtual students, teachers, staff, and administrators, I have created a “virtual heart garden”. You are invited to share words of solidarity, feelings, and commitments to reconciliation. There are options to upload drawings as well. I explain all of this on the short (less than 5 mins!) video tutorial below.

Link to Virtual Heart garden: https://padlet.com/lhowe054/heartgarden

Here is a link with a short video tutorial I made for using the padlet: https://youtu.be/aTOSF-dX1oc

To add your contributions to the padlet, click on the padlet link. Share this link with your students. Once you are in the Virtual Heart garden, you will see many messages. To add yours, click on the plus sign in the bottom right corner. A “sticky note” will pop up. At the top of the sticky note, you are invited to add your name, your treaty/territory and your school and grade. Below, write a message to honour the 215 children and to make a commitment to the work ahead. At the bottom of the sticky note, there are options to add photographs or drawings. Padlet saves automatically. Once you are finished writing, click anywhere on the padlet. Now, you can go back to your post if you want to edit or change the background colour. Just hover over the top right-hand corner of your sticky note. You will see options to edit come up. Important reminders: please instruct your students to only write on their sticky note. They are not to modify/change anyone else’s. Also, as this is a public memorialisation, please review your students’ messages to ensure that they are honourable, with correct spelling and terminology.

This is a public call to action for change in this country: to value and honour the lives of Indigenous children, their families and communities, while also expressing our collective grief and honoring of the children lost and the families left behind.

Thank you Lisa Howell for this amazing resource!