The Wellness Almanac was really honoured to receive permission from the Xetolacw Community School and the Pique newsmagazine to share the stories that ran in the June 22 issue, written by grade 11 socials students from XCS. (We couldn’t get permission from each individual student as they had already graduated for the year.) We wanted to amplify their voices, and space them out, so more people had a chance to hear from them.

And now that we have shared them all, we also want to amplify this response, glimpsed in a recent Pique, from Mark Brown of Ontario, who happened upon the article while out in Whistler for a mountain bike event:

“I have never read such a powerful collection of articles.

Katie gave us an understanding through examples of strength of the Lil’wat Nation. Kevin, which his comment that “the government may get suspicious if we do form one” was incredibly insightful. Kory’s hope for more sports and Charlie’s description of what a “rez” is demonstrated that there is so much work yet to do in Canada’s Indigenous communities.

Congratulations to all of the writers.”

Y’all, can I tell you, as a freelance journalist and writer for the past 20-something years, feedback like this is rare and amazing. You connected with people’s hearts and minds. Take a moment and sit with that. Truly, congratulations to you all.