Grade 6 students at Neilson Grove Elementary have been reading A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park which tells the story of Nya, an 11-year old girl in Sudan who fetches water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home twice a day.
Inspired by the hardships faced by Nya, students decided to try ‘walking in her shoes’.
For the last couple of weeks, they have been collecting milk jugs and last week, the students walked from the school along Millennium Trail to the Ladner boat launch, filled up their water jugs and carried them back to the school. The task was not as easy as it might sound. The aim was to get the students to value what we take for granted – easy access to water, and to have empathy for others in less fortunate situations.
