On November 19th, Crestwood Preparatory College hosted “Towards Reconciliation 2”, our second human rights symposium devoted to indigenous issues. Over 400 students attended, with guests coming to Crestwood from many GTA independent schools. The day began with Ojibwe Anishinaabe kokum Kim Wheatley, who offered a prayer for a successful day of learning for all participants.
3rd Annual Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium On Thursday, November 10th, Crestwood Preparatory College will host its 3rd Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium. This day-long event will connect like-minded students interested in social justice in the world around them with dynamic, thought-provoking speakers and presenters. The focus of this year’s symposium is responding to the
On Tuesday November 25, Crestwood held its 2nd Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium timed to coincide with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. 370 students from 16 different high schools attended, listening to 30 speakers on a range of different topics. Students were challenged to think about human rights
On Tuesday, November 20th, Crestwood Preparatory College held a Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium for over 200 students from seven Toronto area schools. Organized by Scott Masters and the History Department, the symposium provided an opportunity for students to engage in learning opportunities beyond their regular classroom instruction. Seventeen speakers participated in the event touching
On Tuesday, November 20th, Crestwood Preparatory College will be holding a Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium for over two hundred students, from five participating schools in the Toronto area. Organized by Scott Masters, The symposium is headlined by speakers Julie Toskan Casale, founding member of the Toskan Casale Foundation, Marina Nemat, author of Prisoner of
The Tour for Humanity rolled onto the Crestwood School campus on Thursday and spent two full days delivering a relevant and inspiring educational experience for Junior students. The T4H cost $1.2 million to conceive, design and build. It is a 30-seat, wheel-chair accessible, state-of-the-art, technologically advanced mobile education centre that presents information on the
On October 1st and 2nd, Crestwood’s students from Grades 4-7 will be participating in The Tour for Humanity. This is a technologically advanced, state-of-the-art, mobile human rights education centre that educates students about human rights issues and intolerance in an age appropriate manner. Its goal is to initiate discussion and inspire and empower students to
1. PURPOSE The purpose of this Policy is to outline the practices and procedures of Crestwood Preparatory College and School (the “School”) to meet its obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (the “AODA”) and, specifically, the Customer Service Standards. Through this Policy, the School establishes and implements practices and procedures consistent
Human Rights Day is celebrated annually around the world on 10 December every year. The date was chosen to honor the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 10 December 1948, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global statement of human rights and one of the first major achievements of
Chris White, along with Canadian Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke and Shelley Hamilton, is delving into his Black, Native and Nova Scotian roots to create songs and poems that address and celebrate this largely unacknowledged aspect of Canadian history and culture. Together, they have performed and recorded this material in Halifax and Toronto, and have
Michael Etherington has family roots and heritage from James Bay; he is a proud representative of the Omushkego-Cree. Michael’s late great-aunt was the oldest residential school attendee in Canada at 111 years of age, attending St. Anne’s in Fort Albany, Ont.; in 2008 she was one of four invited attendees to hear Stephen Harper’s formal
Laureen (Blu) Waters is a member of the Metis Nation of Ontario. Her family is from Big River Saskatchewan, Star Blanket Reserve and Bra’dor Lake, Eskasoni First Nations, Cape Breton Nova Scotia. Blu grew up with her grandmother and learned about traditional medicines performing extractions, healing, and taking of care of the sick. At 10
Kim Wheatley is an Ojibwe Anishinaabe Grandmother from Shawanaga First Nation Reserve who carries the spirit name Head or Leader of the Fireflower and who is Turtle Clan. She has appeared on TV, radio and in many news articles connected to her passion for Indigenous Knowledge sharing. Kim has worked with over 34 First Nation
Last week, an important meeting of the minds took place in the cafeteria. Grade 6 “delegates” represented selected NGOs at our Global Issues Conference. Their informative displays shared NGO mandates and connections to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN’s Millennium Goals. Each delegate had $100 (in “Crestwood currency”) to donate at the end of
Since 2015, Michael Levitt has served as a Member of Parliament in Canada’s House of Commons, representing the Toronto riding of York-Centre. As an MP, he has worked to represent his riding, one of the most diverse in Canada, as well as serving as a voice for Human Rights on the international stage. In March
Member of Parliament Michael Levitt visited Crestwood on Friday morning to speak with social studies students about his life and work as a parliamentarian and representative for the riding of York-Centre. The day began with a roundtable discussion with students from Mr. Masters and Mr. Hawkins’ Grade 12 classes. During this time, the discussion focused
Crestwood and YARRD (Youth against Racial and Religious Discrimination) celebrated Black History Month this week with an assembly that featured Shaun Boothe. Shaun is an award-winning hip hop artist who has visited Crestwood a number of times in the past, including at our human rights symposia. Shaun brought the students a powerful message of hope
The World Issues welcomed Emmanuel Jal this week. Emmanuel is from the Sudan, where as a young boy he saw his village destroyed in the country’s civil war and genocide. Emmanuel himself was forced into being a child soldier, and he survived desperate times as a young boy and teenager. An aid worker was able
Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux is the first Indigenous Chair for Truth and Reconciliation on behalf of Lakehead University, Thunder Bay and Orillia. Her research and academic writing is directed towards understanding the continuing transmission of unresolved intergenerational trauma and grief, primarily within the Indigenous community of Canada. We were honoured to have her as our keynote
Do you have a student in Grade 10 or 11? Are they looking to participate in an engaging summer experience with the opportunity to live on a university campus for two weeks? If so, they might be interested in the brand new McGill Summer Academy. The McGill Summer Academy will run from July 9th- July
Born in the small town of Klimontov, Poland in 1938, Saul was only an infant when Europe transformed into a war zone. He was born into a loving family: his father was a banker, his mother was a homemaker, and he had two older brothers. Saul remembers very little of this briefly relatively peaceful life
Nayani Thiyagarajah is a speaker and community activist and a director and a producer, a daughter of the Yalpanam-Tamil diaspora, as well as a writer, performance artist, and filmmaker. She has worked extensively with multiple arts-based organizations and performance groups across Toronto, including Manifesto Community Projects, ArtReach Toronto, b.current Performing Arts, and Schools Without Borders. She
Rosemary McCarney is President and CEO of Plan International Canada Inc. (Plan Canada), an international and humanitarian development organization. Founded as Foster Parents Plan, this NGO now works in more than 45 developing countries helping children and their families achieve lasting improvements in their lives. That includes the notable “Because I am a Girl” campaign.
On October 2nd, Ms. Williams and Mr. Masters took members of the YARRD/Me to We club to We Day, at the Air Canada Centre. The students had the chance to see musical acts such as Hedley and Kardinal Offishall, and they had their social consciences tweaked by the Kielburger brothers, Chris Hatfield, Queen Noor, and
Shaun Boothe is a fixture in the Toronto hip hop community, one we have been proud to host a number of times at Crestwood. He first visited The CHC classes in 2011, where he showed Mr. Masters’ and Mr. Hawkins’ classes an alternative approach to modern history, using hip hop as a means to teach
Gerda Frieberg was born in Upper Silesia, Poland in 1925. In October 1939, her father was taken away. In 1940, Gerda, her mother, and sister were deported to the Jaworzno Ghetto. In 1942, she was sent to the Oberaltstadt concentration camp, where her sister was interned. Her mother joined them in 1943. Gerda worked in
Judy Cohen is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary. She was born on September 17th, 1928 in the city of Debrecen. Judy was the youngest in a family of 7 children. Her early life was a good one, full of promise and possibility, until she and her family were caught up in the terrible events unfolding
Sally Wasserman is the only child survivor of the Dambrowa ghetto, which was located in southern Poland, not too far from Auschwitz-Birkenau. When her family was forced into the ghetto, her mother encountered Mr. Turken, a man who did work for the authorities in the ghetto. He and his wife agreed to take Sally in
Hedy Bohm grew up in prewar Romania, in a region that later came under Hungarian control. As the war escalated, she and her family increasingly came under the influence of the Nazis, and the family was deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. Hedy was able to survive Auschwitz-Birkenau for three months; at that
Crestwood Preparatory College is proud to congratulate Scott Masters for his selection as one of the seven recipients for the 2012 Governor General’s History Awards for Excellence in Teaching. A past recipient of The Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Baillie Award for excellence in Secondary School Teaching (as nominated by former
