Sxwi’em’ Shelh Story Trails Program
Sxwi’em’ Shelh Story Trails Program is a Land-based, inclusive, experiential program where youth, adults, and Elders engage in the building and maintenance of community trails. Sxwi’em’ Shelh Story Trails Program began in 2014 in Quw’utsun and further moved to Penelakut Island in 2018 and Stz’uminus First Nation in 2021. The purpose of this program is to connect to culturally relevant places; build Healing Circles to house outdoor learning with Elders, install essential Hul’q’umi’num’ Place Name Signage, create a documentary films about the process; create numerous Experiential Books about the process; and learn from Elders' experiences on the Land.
"Each time children go out into the world with their class and are free to experience it from their own perspective, they are offered an opportunity to form their own opinions about what they see and hear and feel, not simply to accept the second - or third - or fourth-hand opinions of someone else. Encountering the complexity of that world and meeting the people who make it function, when carefully planned, can forge new connections that enlarge that child's understanding. It is not solely the child's concept of the world that is enlarged, but also the child's participation in that world. Engaging the world out there - whether it be walking through a forest, talking about the people living in Grand Central Station, watching construction workers skillfully operating cranes that seem to go up into the sky, talking to an Elder, observing sanitation workers showing what happens to massive amounts of garbage - provokes questions, real questions; the need to find out; the need to share their impressions with others; and in some cases the need to act." Out of the Classroom and into the World, Salvatore Vascellaro