RANKIN INLET
Students at Maani Ulujuk Ilinniarvik (MUI) spent a day learning the value of respect, both in and out of the classroom, during a conference on RespectEd: resiliency and safe youth this past week in Rankin Inlet.

Tia Maktar, Channell Angutetuar, Trinty Hickes and Tiana Manernalak react as Mary Gibbons and Manuel Netser, from left, break the chain during a day of RespectEd activities at Maani Ulujuk Ilinniarvik in Rankin Inlet this past week. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo

MUI teacher Jen Zeinstra said April 27 was a day of activities dedicated to the promotion of respect and healthy relationships with the community, other students and staff members.

She said the program also contained an anti-bullying component.

"The anti-bullying and healthy-relationships component are offered through a Canadian Red Cross program," said Zeinstra.

"Our teachers were trained in the delivery of the program earlier this year.

"The goal of the day's activities was to help develop resiliency and respect in youth for the community.

"What they learned during the day would be applicable to their lives as a whole, not just in school."

Each of the games the students took part in had an embedded motif or lesson aimed at helping them develop more respect for each other and those around them.

One activity had the students form a line and balance on each other in a sitting position for as long as they could without breaking contact.

MUI teacher Amanda Eecherk said the object of the activity was to show the students they can rely on each other for support. She said the game is a lot of fun and shows the students the value of working together.

"The students need to rely on each other to be able to find strength as a community," said Eecherk. "The activity shows them co-operation and teamwork can help them to succeed.

"We did a practice run with it first and then we did the real thing, and that's when the strategy started to come out as the kids talked about how to tighten up their circle, whether to use one knee or two knees to support the person balanced on them and how to improve their communication.

"The exercise showed them communication, respect for each other and the bond developed between them all help build community strength, and that's what we want to see them do in Rankin Inlet."

Eecherk said the two-day training sessions that staff members from all three Rankin schools took earlier in the school year were engaging and informative. She said the RespectEd training sessions in violence and abuse prevention were facilitated by Canadian Red Cross trainer Rebecca Ulrich, who has delivered the training sessions in Rankin a number of times.

"We had a number of students throughout the day wearing pink T-shirts to signify they also did the RespectEd training with Rebecca. The RespectEd program is used to build resiliency within our youth and teach them about safe practices.

"The youths who trained with Rebecca selected some of the sessions used during RespectEd day, and we went through what we had learned to select the others.

"The youths took on a leadership role and co-operated with teachers to present sessions on bullying, GPS (communication), consent and how to deal with anger triggers."

Fourteen students took the training with Ulrich.

Eecherk said their basic goal was to work together with the school team to pass on what they learned to their peers.

She said the students helped bring the RespectEd lessons to the forefront during the day's activities.

"We figured having them paired with a teacher would be the easiest way for them to touch base on a multitude of sessions, rather than just one or two. When our youth are active and engaged, they take what they've learned to heart and kind of make those connections at the arena, jobs they have and throughout our community.

"The hope is they will be able to internalize what we're teaching them and build on it from there. Because suicide rates are so high in our territory, we want to do anything we can to combat that - whether we helped one student during the day or 100 students - and make a positive difference in the lives of our students."

Zeinstra and Eecherk designed and organized the different RespectEd sessions and organized the schedule.

They also made lesson plans for the organizers, co-ordinated with community members who came to help support some of the programs, and worked with the Red Cross to help deliver some of its healthy-relationships programming.

Zeinstra said the teachers learned a lot of the theory behind, and importance of, delivering the healthy-relationships program from the standpoint of both the students and the school. She said students who took the direct programming with the Red Cross really seemed to enjoy the experience.

"MUI does have a big-picture approach, so every year we host a variety of anti-bullying and co-operative activities such as our staff-student challenges," said Zeinstra. "We held a few events during the past couple of weeks to pump up the RespectEd activities and we had lots of kids interested in helping out, finding out what the day was all about and signing up for the activities they were interested in.

"So, overall, the day led to a lot of excitement and positive spirit within the school.

"In addition to the one-day RespectEd conference, we hid the letters to the word respect around town and gave the students the challenge of finding them and bringing them back to MUI to claim a prize, just as a way to further pump the occasion."

Eecherk said the community's Sherry Morey and Mary Fredlund joined the school team to offer a healthy-relationships session.

She said the session dealt with passive-aggressive behaviours and how to assert yourself in a healthy and proper way in a dating relationship.

"There was a session on consent and another on your relationship rights and how to deal with it when someone is impeding on those rights.

"They also talked about underlying areas, such as is it OK for your boyfriend or girlfriend to force you to only do what they want to do, and only like what they like? We also had a session on how to combat cyberbullying, and another on how to identify bullying called bullying, harassing and rudeness, and the right way to deal with those situations.

"We held our activities the day before Pakallak Tyme and, even though it was a beautiful, warm day, we had a large number of kids excited to be at the school, so that's great feedback in itself from the kids."

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