Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Coming from an Indigenous background, Breanna Roy says there were times when she felt out of place among her Napanee and District Secondary school peers.
Noting she wasn’t the only student to feel this way, she decided to make a change by successfully running to be an Indigenous Student Trustee with the Limestone District School Board. She outlined her platform through a virtual application and was chosen by Indigenous Student representatives from each secondary school within Limestone.
She was elected earlier this month and will officially assume the role in September when she enters Grade 12.
Roy says she was motivated to run for the position after noticing a lack of Indigenous programming within elementary schools.
“In Grade 7 I had this wonderful teacher named Mr. Strand and he brought in culture to our classroom and before that I hadn’t really known anything about it except that I was Indigenous, but what does that really mean?” Roy said. “I went through most of high school, I’ll be done Grade 11 in a couple weeks, and since this year there wasn’t really an opportunity for students to find out anything about their culture and their ways and I had to really do that on my own. What I really want to work on this year is bringing more opportunities and programs for students like myself and for students that are just really interested in other cultures to really have the opportunity to learn about Indigenous culture and what that means.”
According to her application, that includes plans to create a program with the Indigenous student representatives across Limestone that would see secondary students visit Grade 7-8 classes to discuss some of the challenges Indigenous peoples face in Canada today.
She hopes by teaching others about her culture it would help combat some of the negative stereotypes that she experienced in elementary school.
“It’s unfortunate because we live so close to a reserve that there’s so much stereotypes still happening, whether it’s as a joke or they truly believe that,” said Roy. “I definitely heard jokes in the hallways about stereotypes or just negative things that aren’t exactly true. I think you’ll get that anywhere but it makes you uncomfortable for the most part, even if they say it as a joke. I kind of want to normalize not having stereotypes at NDSS and at the school board.”
Roy says that program would aim to break stereotypes for all minorities within the school.
“In the past couple of years Limestone has made this huge leaps in getting these programs out but Grade 7, 8 and 9, not really,” said Roy. “For me what I witnessed there wasn’t really any programs but in Grade 10 we had the drop-in program which is basically just anyone, Indigenous or not, interested in Indigenous culture can go onto this Zoom and have elders and knowledge keepers come in…So in the past two years I’d say there’s been massive leaps in Limestone to be able to bring these programs in but before that I would say there wasn’t really any opportunity that I was aware of before that. “
Supporting Indigenous culture isn’t just a high school passion for Roy, but one she hopes to continue to work on well after she graduates from NDSS.
“I want to be a human rights lawyer and right now I’m more passionate about Indigenous right and Aboriginal rights,” said Roy. “That’s kind of where I see my path going, but definitely human rights law whether it’s for any other type of minority or activism, but right know Indigenous human rights law is my goal.”
This year, Limestone saw its largest and most diverse group of students running for Student Trustee. There were nine student candidates in total.