The grade 8 students at Hillcrest School got a little closer to what it is like to live in poverty.
They visited Harvest House, for a tour, and learned more about what they do at the shelter.
They were then assigned to an independent study, using their own talnets and points of view.
They did a deep learning project and they could choose anything they wanted that had to do with poverty.
Emily Murphy created a video, about a man she interviewed, who she never would have thought was homeless, if she had met him on the street, “It was an eyeopener for me, to see what he went through. He went to homeless shelters at the age of 13, which is how old I am. Thinking about that, being my age and living at a homeless shelter, that would be pretty scary. He is now turning his life around at the age of 41, which is very inspiring.”
Murphy says she used to thing poverty was people sitting on the street by themselves with no food or money.
“That is so far from the truth. I learned about how the working poor can also be someone in poverty, and how being homeless doesn’t mean just not having money,” Murphy says.
Morgan Sarson says he didn’t even realise there were shelters here, “I didn’t know there was a homeless shelter in Moncton and it really made me sad because I drive past Harvest House all of the time. I thought they only had homeless shelters in big cities, like New York, cause that is what I see in the movies.”
Sarson also created a video, based on what he learned, “Before this project started, I always thought that people who live in poverty are bad, and had addictions. I also thought they were dirty, but that’s not the case. They could be working, but not getting paid very much, and are very clean.”
Catherine Minnaar says she learned it can happen to anyone, “I’m trying to understand all of their situations better. It’s just one mistake and it can happen to anyone.”
Minnaar used her love of sketching and writing poetry for her project, and wrote a book on the subject of poverty, “I made a storybook because I wanted to include a lot of symbolism in the pictures. The colour decreases over all of the pages, as the man loses hope, and moves into poverty. At the end of the book, I included a list of all of the organizations, where you can volunteer. I also included a list of food banks as well.”
You can find some of the photos from their work in the video posted above.
