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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife Catholic Schools and the Union of Northern Workers are donating $1,500 to the YWCA's GirlSpace program, which helps provide activities and resources for disadvantaged girls.

Grade 11 student Hannah Latour, left, and GirlsSpace co-ordinator Ashley MacDonald display a Christmas card and a $1,500 cheque YWCA NWT at St. Patrick School last Wednesday. - Kevin Allerston/NNSL photo

The donation has its roots in the fall when Grade 11 student Hannah Latour saw an online video about the plight of girls living in poverty.

The video, The Girl Effect, can be viewed on YouTube and provides information about the struggles girls face around the world, including those who get married or enter prostitution as early as age 12.

When Latour, who is the secretary of the school's Interact Club, saw the video, she knew she had to do something. She collaborated with designer Diana Curtis to design Christmas cards to help raise money for the GirlSpace program.

"I guess I was just concerned and wanting to do something to help people and to try and make a difference," said Latour. "I want to help educate people and make people more aware."

"GirlSpace is all about teaching pride, leadership and confidence so, I mean, I'm hearing girls tell me, 'I didn't know that before,' or 'I didn't realize I had a voice,'" said Ashley MacDonald, the GirlSpace co-ordinator for the YWCA NWT.

"(The money) will predominantly go toward supplies, field trips and snacks. It will inevitably go toward any projects that they dream up," said MacDonald.

MacDonald said girls facing poverty in the North have a five-time higher risk of abusing drugs than girls in the South.

"And then, what do they do with such limited resources? And then if they live in a community that is not Yellowknife or Inuvik, what do they do?"

The cheque was presented to MacDonald in teacher Susan Huvenaars' St. Patrick School classroom over lunch last Wednesday.

"We thought we need to do something about educating people about girl's rights, that kind of thing, and at the same time, we had just come back from a school in South Africa we had exchanged with and we thought we would do a scholarship program," said Huvenaars.

The club also wants to work with GirlSpace to help set up a scholarship program so girls at the Grantleigh School in Richards Bay, South Africa, can continue attending school. Members of the club visited the school over the summer, and students from the school will be visiting Yellowknife this December.

Curtis, who designed the cards for free, said she did the work after watching the video and feeling moved.

"I saw the video of The Girl Effect, and I have healthy, young children, we are blessed with education, we have a roof over our head, and I just felt, 'wow, we have so much that these kids don't have.'"

The donated money was the result of a $500 donation from Yellowknife Catholic Schools, $500 from the Union of Northern Workers and $500 from the sale of the Christmas cards.

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