We came to Netamisakomik Centre for Education in Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg to make a school song.
The students had other ideas.
White Lake had been under threat for years. The community had been fighting for it, organizing around it, speaking out about it. The students knew all of this. It was their lake, their fight, their story. And when we arrived with cameras and said we were there to help them make something, they didn't hesitate.
They wanted to make a film about the fishery.
So we did. We went out to the lake. We filmed the water, the land, the people who fish it. Students held the cameras, asked the questions, directed each other. They interviewed community members. They gathered testimony. They edited the footage into something coherent and powerful.
What came out wasn't a school project. It was a document. A record of a community protecting something that belonged to them.
What Happens When You Get Out of the Way
The thing we've learned after twenty years of doing this work is that the best creative projects happen when you stop trying to direct them and start trying to support them.
Indigenous youth are not waiting for someone to give them a story. They already have stories. They have the stories of their communities, their families, their land. What they often lack is access to the tools and the support to tell those stories in a form that travels beyond the community.
That's what we provide. The cameras. The microphones. The editing. The experience to help shape raw footage into something finished. And then we step back.
What This Looks Like for Your School
Every community has a story that needs to be told. Sometimes it's a language being passed down. Sometimes it's a fight being waged. Sometimes it's a celebration of something that happened for the first time.
Whatever the story is in your school and your community, we can help your students tell it. In their own words. With professional tools. In a form they'll be proud of for years.
Reach out if you'd like to talk about what this could look like.