After the Vow of Silence

This is a response Rajveer in Div. 2 wrote after participating and after watching this video

"No talking!!!!This video show kids that what happens around the world when kids can't stand up and have to be forced to do something. I was very excited to take the vow of silence.While it was happening I was so tempted to talk.I think other people felt that way too.I also thought how did Balkaran not talk.I think it was very challenging for both of us.It was sooo hard to listen to Ms.Forsyth while we were in gym.  The vow of silence reminded my of a book I read called Speechless because the kid in that book also took a vow of silence.  I think the vow of silence was special because lots of people joined it and we stood up to help the kids that are not allowed to talk."

Poems written during The Vow of Silence...

Silent
No talking
No saying
Forced
Unable
Shushed
No hope
Taken
Happy
Unhappy
Left out
Beaten
Tortured

We can make a difference
Speak up!
End the silence in the world!

by Balkaran

_______________
Silence fills the air
Masks conceal our words
From escaping
The ones who are silent
Don't get freedom
We are silent
That's another world

by Arshpreet

Vow of Silence

We had a very successful Vow of Silence afternoon with over 100 students and teachers participating.  Selling the Vow for Silence masks made a profit of $165 to be used for our Adopt A Village project. Here are a few pictures from the afternoon.

Here is what Gursharan wrote before we did the vow of silence this year.
"This year will actually be my first year in participating in the "Vow of Silence". This has started to become an annual thing. We started this last year, I believe. My friends were participating in this last year. When I was about to buy one, they ran out of masks. I was too late. But judging by my friends and their comments of how hard it was, I had then known how hard it was for those kids  for whom we were staying silent.
 






So, this year, on the first day, I bought a mask. On the first day, forty masks were sold! This year, I am really excited for it because, I want to try my best to keep this Vow of Silence, for those kids who have to be silent, and have no choice. Anyone who buys a mask, is supporting the cause, and is trying to give a voice to those kids who don't have a voice! I hope we have enough masks for our entire school because, because, a lot and I mean a lot of kids want to buy this!! "

This is a comment from Balkaran after completing the Vow of Silence afternoon. 
"Today was the Vow of Silence. I loved seeing people who are talkative, not talking for a change.  I personally think I’m quite talkative so that was pretty hard for me to hush up. I think that the people in the world who have no say are afraid but I am not, and I want to stand up and to end world hunger…The Vow of Silence rocks. I am definitely going to participate next year. The Vow of Silence is so fun and for the people who never participated I hope you will participate next year."

My Thoughts on We Day

      Today, I am here to tell you about how much fun we had at We Day this year on October 13^th . For those who don't know what We Day is , We Day is a fun event that celebrates all the work that the Me to We members did in the past year helping Free the Children fund raise for helping poor children around the world .

     There were lots of people there attending We Day that were from all over BC . Worldwide , the Me to We members helped fund raise for all kinds of people and that helped out a lot . Free the Children gave education to people that don't have any learning experience because they have to work to support their families . In BC, only 60% of Aboriginal students are graduating from high school . They built wells in villages for the children didn't have to walk so far and miss school . Also, the group brought medical care to the people who needed it . We learned about many things Free the Children did for struggling people .

     Also , there were great speakers and performers . Like Mikhail Gorbachev , Liz Murray , Shawn Desman , Down with Webster , Hedley , and a many more . It was great because it really warmed my heart about what they said about what they did to help out the needy kids and how they congratulated us for the time we gave into volunteering for our community . They were all fantastic .

    If you want to see what happened on that day , you can watch it on October 30^th on Much Music and CTV . I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope you get to watch it on tv . Thank you !

                                                        By : Chancey

We Day!

We day was a awesome experience for al the people that went and I was lucky people that got to go to be there to. We were also lucky to meet Mrs.Wong there. All the great people and the speakers there like Mikhail Gorbachev, Mia Farrow, Spencer West, Marc and Crieg Keilberger, and all the others. We day was a GREAT EXPERIENCE. I loved it at We day and so did everyone else. I loved We Day because it help me understand about how the people that sit on the streets don't have much and it inspires me to help all the people who have less than me. I would like to thank the teachers that took us (Ms. King. Mrs. Jeram, Ms. Heinrichs, Mrs. Forsyth, Mr. Lattimer, and Mrs. Wong for getting us the tickets )

 

By: Michaela.S.

 

These  Paragraphs were writing by: Gurpreet.G., Chancey.V., Manisha.M., and Michaela.S.

We Day

We Day

On October 13, Our school's Me To We group went to, "We Day". It was an inspiring event that featured celebrities and motivational speakers like Shawn Desman, "SHAQ" (Shaquille O'Neal), Hedley, Down With Webster, Freshh, Craig and Mark Kielburger, Mikhail Gorbachev, Spencer West, Mia Farrow, Liz Murray, Jesse Cruickshank, Michel Chikwanine, Waneek Horn-Miller, Jesse Giddings, Robin Wiszowaty and Noah Kaplin, not to mention 18,000 Me To We members!

We Day was made to inspire and celebrate the youth movement for global change. Trudeau has helped make one of these changes because we built a school in India!

If you would like to help, you can check out the official website, www.weday.com to donate money, or if you have Facebook, you can like the We Day page, and just by doing that, you'll be donating a dollar towards the group. (We already have 741,381 likes!)

Quotes from We Day

October 13,2011                                                          

These are some of the many quotes that spoke me:

   “It doesn’t matter what age you are too make a difference in the world.” ~Mia Farrow

 "The change starts within each one of us and ends only when all children are free to be children.”  ~Craig Kielburger                                                                                                                                                                                                    “You probably think it is too far to even make a change. Well, think of where you live, what if it happened there?”~Spencer West

      “We aren’t aware of how we’re changing the world. We just make a small change and it affects the movement. The movement that is We.”~Marc Kielburger

“If not me, who? And if not now, when?”~Mikhail Gorbachev

“If there is anything I believe in it’s that this generation of kids can change the world.”~Craig Kielburger   

By: Manisha.M.
      

We Day 2011

We Day was a awesome experience for all the people that went and I was one of the lucky people that got to be there. We were also lucky to meet Mrs.Wong there. All the great people and the speakers were there like Mikhail Gorbachev, Mia Farrow, Spencer West, Marc and Crieg Keilberger, and all the others. We Day was a GREAT EXPERIENCE. I loved it and so did everyone else.

By:  Michaela.S.

These  paragraphs were written by: Gurpreet.G., Chancey.V., Manisha.M., and Michaela.S.

Me to We Flash Mob

     On Tuesday, June 21st, we had a flash mob at Metrotown to celebrate our amazing year. We were on the bottom floor, in between T&T supermarket and Toys R Us. Sadie and Jerrica started off, and everyone else joined in after. We danced to "Club Can't Handle Me" by Flo Rida. The dance committee also added the We Day dance to our dance. In the end, everyone shouted "Me to We". A lot of people were watching from above.
     After the dance, as we were leaving a security guard did come to talk to us, but we didn't get in trouble. He was a former student of Ms. Kezar and he said that  if we ever wanted to do it again, just tell them and they'll get everything ready. Everything was fine and everyone had a lot of fun! Here is the video for our Flash Mob.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he0a3I-dRFg

Thank you to Kevin for helping with the music and to Mr. Lattimer, Ms Diesvelt, Mrs. Wong, Ms Mack and Ms King.  We've learned so much in this club and also had so much fun! Check out the slide show made by Kam!

Me to We Assembly

     On Friday, May 27th. we had a Me to We assembly. We invited Mr. Bakshi and Mr. Claire to come to the assembly because they donated and supported us and we wanted to honor them. Alicia Doo from the Free the Children organization was also at the assembly.


     Sadie, Simran, Anjana, Laura, and Meili ran the whole assembly. Sadie made a Prezi to go along with what they were talking about. They talked about our guests donating money and about how we reached our goal. Then Alicia Doo talked about how Free the Children started. She told everyone about countries in poverty and how Craig Keilburger and 12 other kids started to help. Now a lot of kids are a part of Free the Children to help other countries in poverty. Then we gave the cheque to Alicia Doo and took some pictures. Mr. Lattimer summarized what Me to We did in the past two years and we ended the assembly with Hearts Around the World. 


     After the assembly, we had a lunch  in the library. All our members brought food to share.  Our guests joined us and we had a big celebration. The Me to We club got a chance to talk to the guests and we also had fun. Mr. Bakshi and Mr. Claire gave a speech about what they thought of us helping other countries. Then Mr. Lattimer brought out an ice-cream cake to celebrate what we have done. It was a big day for the Me to We club and we hope to see pictures of the school next year. 


     Our Me to We group also received the Big Dreamers Award from Free the Children. We will get an extra $5000 for the community our school is being built in India. We have raised $13,500 in the past two years. 

Me to We Meeting

     We had a Me to We meeting on Friday the 13th. It's almost the end of the school year and we've got a lot to do. 


     We have been successful this year and we raised enough money to build a school in India. A lot of people donated money, so we want to thank them. We couldn't have done it without those who donated money. Our Me to We group will be having a assembly on May 27th. We hope that those who donated money will come and see us present a cheque to Free the Children. The children in India would be delighted to have a new school. 


     Komalpreet, from the Local committee, is ordering Me to We t-shirts for our group. The t-shirts are going to be made out of bamboo. We hope to get the t-shirts before the assembly and wear it in the assembly. 


     The Local committee is also planning to have a movie fundraising night in the gym. It will take place on June 8th. The money raised will go to Covenant House to help the homeless youth. 


     Every year the grade 7s go on to high school. The Me to We club would like more people to join when the grade 7s leave. A group of boys are making a slide show to show other children what we do. We are hoping that everyone will be joining the Me to We club to help others. 


     We would also like to thank the teachers that are involved in the Me to We club. They spend their lunch hours at our meetings and help us organize stuff. Without them the Me to We club wouldn't be possible. 

Me to We Meeting

This week in our Me to We meeting we discussed what to do since the end of the year is quickly approaching. The international group is finishing the school in India. They're also thinking of doing a dance flash mob at Metrotown or Oakridge mall.

       The local committee is planning to have a movie night in June to raise money for the youth at the Covenant House. Me to We voted on and chose the movie "Despicable Me" to play on the movie night. 
        Komalpreet is planning to order the Free the Children t-shirts by Tuesday. We chose electric blue for the colour of the shirts. In addition,  the t-shirts will be made of bamboo. Mr. Lattimmer will be buying it for our whole group. These t-shirts will be used as a group uniform that we will wear when we go volunteering and do group projects outside of school.

          Since it's near the end of the year, we have now formed new groups. Each group is assigned a job. The local committee is going to stay the same because they already have their own stuff to do. There are four groups, not including the local committee, which includes the May Celebration group, the Flash mob group, the invitations group and the presentation group. The May Celebration group needs to organize an assembly celebrating the school in India. People who donated money will be attending the assembly and the communications group will be contacting them so they can come. The Flash Mob group is in charge of making up new dance moves to add to the We Day dance. Every year there is a presentation to get new students to join the Me to We club. A group of boys and girls in grades 6 and 7 will be making this presentation.

          Thank you to everyone who donated money, we couldn't have built the school in India if you guys didn't help out. This has been a successful year for the Me to We club and we hope everyone will continue to show their support and make a positive difference after we show you our presentation. 

Brick by Brick

   On Friday, March 18th , We had a special visitor, Mr. Bakshi .come to our meeting. No one knew who he was at first, but soon we were very glad that he came. Mr. Bakshi read the article about our club and project and  he was so impressed that he wanted to donate the rest of the money,that we needed to build the school in India.   He presented us with a check of $1369.15 on behalf of the the Janta Sewak Society. One of the society members also came with him to give this check to us. The money that Mr. Bakshi donated was the final touch to our goal of $8500.00  

 Our Me to We group started this project in April  last year and we finally completed our goal! Mr. Bakshi says that we should be grateful we have school to go to and he also said that we should take care of the community because it will be better for further generations. We are very happy that our hard work finally paid off.   We  hope to help supply the school after we build it. 

Thank you to everyone who donated money! Below we have some pictures of when Mr. Bakshi came.

     

Me to We 

Me to We

Group that went to the rotary( Izaac, Alisha,Sadie and Pritha)

with Mr. Bakshi and Society member

Group that went to the radio station (Harmen, Ravneet,

Monica, and Simarn) with Mr, Bakshi and Society Member

In picture: Mrs. Wong, Sucha Claire, Mr. Bakshi,

Mr. Lattimer and Society Member

 

In Picture: Ms. King, Ms. Diesvelt, Mrs. Wong,

Mr. Bakshi, Mr. Lattimer, Society Member and

Sucha Claire

Me to We group

   Our volunteer committee organized  us to volunteer to play with the preschool at Sunset Community Center. On Saturday March 19th it will be  our last day of volunteering. This is our second volunteering project after the soup kitchen at the church.  Thank you committe members!  We enjoyed ourselves and gave back to the community.

     The local committee is planning to do another project for Covenant House. We already did two projects for Covenant House. The first project we did was to collect toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner for the youth. For our second project which was about a month ago, we collected toques and gloves because it was very cold and we thought that the youth at Covenant House would need more warm clothes. This time the local committee is planning to have a movie night to raise money for Covenant House. We will let you know when the movie night will take place after spring break.

Komalpreet will be ordering bamboo t-shirts for our group. These t-shirts will be electric blue with the slogan "Be the Change" written on them.  Please email Komalpreet if you want your own t-shirt. 

Me to We meeting

     On Sunday, March 6th, Jerrica from the volunteer committee went to a Me to We youth summit in downtown Vancouver. She met a lot of children her age that wanted to change the world. Jerrica was the only one from our district that went to the Summit. She said that some people from Victoria took the ferry just to come to this Summit.  While Jerrica was there she learned a lot about helping the world. For example, she learned about water conservation and how much water we all use every day. Jerrica had a great time and she got to meet a lot of wonderful people that had the same goals as she does. She hopes to go to a one week Summit at UBC in the summer.

     Simran and Sadie decided that the Me to We Club should do some individual fundraising over spring break. We only need $1300 more to reach our goal of building a school in India. Each of us needs to raise at least $40 and then we will have completed our goal. Once we finish building the school, we will supply it with books, computers, pencils, paper and other school supplies they might need.

Radio Station

    On Friday, February, 25th, 2011, Simran Gillar, Ravneet Dulai, Harmen Parmar and Monica Kumar from the Me to We club went to Red FM 93.1 Studio in Surrey. Harjinder Thind interviewed us on the radio about our big international project for building a school in the Udaipur District, Rajasthan Region, India. While we were on the radio we were very nervous, but very excited as well. We also got a chance to talk in Punjabi. Right after we finished talking we got a phone call at the school for a donation of $100. We are now waiting  to see if we get anymore donations. If you would like to donate to our project please bring your cheques to the office of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. We only need $1500 more to reach our goal!

Written by-Ravneet Dulai

Rotary Club

     On Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011, Pritha Saha, Izaac Stevens, Alisha Manj, and Sadie Larter from the Me to We club went to do a presentation for the Fraserview Rotary Club. We went there to talk about the school we are building in the Undaipur District of Rajasthan in India. Mr. Claire, the Chair of the Fraserview Rotary club was very happy to see how kids like us were trying to make a difference in the world. A few weeks after the presentation Mr. Claire just emailed us and said that they would like to donate $1000. Mr. Claire presented a cheque at our meeting on March 4th. He said that this was one of the larger donations they have made. He also brought his son Ethan, his father Sucha Claire and another member Kuldeep Tatla. Mr. Claire made a speech and we took some pictures. We were happy to receive the money and it helped us get closer to reaching our goal.

Written by-Alisha Manj

Pictures

Me to We

Me to We Newsletter

From January 10^th to January 24^th, our Me to We local committee organized the collecting of toques and gloves for homeless youth at Covenant House. The Me to We club collected 27 items. Four members of our Me to We club will be going to Covenant House to drop off the items. The youth of Covenant House now have warm clothing for the cold winter season.

We will be going to a radio station to talk about our projects. Four of our Me to We members will be going to Red FM 93.1. The 4 members will be talking live on the radio station. The speakers will talk in both English and Punjabi. After our speech, people will be able to donate money for our Brick by Brick project by calling in the radio station. Our goal is to raise about $8500 for our project. Right now we have raised $5800. So if you want to donate money, please talk to one of our Me to We members at Trudeau or contact the Trudeau office.

By: Gursharan and Jane

Covenant House

  Since it's getting cold outside and the homeless youth of Vancouver is outside right now in the cold streets. Luckily,Covenant House has a home for those homeless youth. But they can't do it alone... We need everyone's help in order to help them and Covenant House. Help by brining touques and gloves that are new or slightly used. We still have a table outside our school library for you to drop off your donations for Covenant House. We'll be open for donation in the morning and at lunch until January 21. Come on Trudeau Tigers! We can help the cold homeless youth that is outside right now!

                    

Volunteering

     The volunteering committee finally organized our first Me to We volunteer project. Two groups of the Me to We went up to St. Patrick's church to volunteer at their soup kitchen on two Saturdays, December 4th and 11th. It was a success and a great experience to help and feed Vancouver's homeless people. We prepared food  and served it to the people who came to the soup kitchen. We served a lot of people on both Saturdays. The Me to We members' parents and some older siblings came to help out too. Everyone was polite and thankful. The students who volunteered felt good and happy to help our community. Thank you so much to Jerrica and all the Volunteer Committee members for organizing this!

Me to We

Vow of Silence

Members of Me To WE