The alarming issue of gun violence may not be something that’s very prevalent in small town Saskatchewan, but it can still affect those who want to help stamp it out in other parts of the world.
That seemed to be the case on Tuesday afternoon, June 26 when the Grade 6 class from Outlook High School donned the color of orange, grabbed their handmade signs and took to the streets of downtown Outlook for an Anti-Gun Violence Walk, done in order to spread awareness of gun violence in the world and to show support for the victims that it impacts.
The students led their teachers and invited guests down Progress Avenue before making their way up McKenzie Street and eventually hitting the downtown core of Outlook by way of Saskatchewan Avenue and Franklin Street, grabbing the attention of the public and passing out information to anyone they came across, spreading awareness of one of Western society’s most crippling issues in their own unique way.
Teacher Colette Charpentier says the kids wanted to do something to help spread the message about gun violence, and the idea of doing a community walk was inspired from talks had in the classroom.
“In Grade 6 Social, we’ve been talking about some of the different issues right here in our community as well as around the world, and one issue that came up was gun violence,” she said. “Every year we do something different, so as part of our Social Studies, we do an action plan. This year, this is what the kids wanted to do as an awareness walk. But we’ve done a variety of different things such as fundraisers, and a couple of years ago we handed out cookies just to make peoples’ day, and this is what they wanted to do this year, so we’ll see what comes up next year!”
The noble gesture by these young students goes to show that sometimes it takes the smallest voices to help make the biggest noise about something important in our world.
