A video made by four students inviting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the grand opening of the Manitoba First Nations School System has evoked a personal response from Trudeau himself.

Scheduled to open on Wednesday, the school system is the first of its kind in Canada. It will offer education programming and extra support to more than 2,000 First Nations students in Manitoba.

The video was made by students Netaysiah Bear, Tanya Kent, Mason Gilmour, and Akaden Pashe at Sergeant Tommy Prince School in Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. It features the students in and around the school in southeastern Manitoba, just south of Lake Winnipeg, where the MFNSS grand opening will take place.

“I know how important my education is to you,” Bear, 10, says in the video. “And we’re having a feast with stew and bannock, too.”

“And I’m saving a bowl and spoon just for you,” Gilmour, 9, adds.

Posted to Facebook on Sept. 29, the video has received more than 35,000 views in a little more than a week.

Trudeau responded on Friday with his own video, saying he would be out of the country on Oct. 11.

“I won’t be able to make it, but [Crown-Indigenous Relations] Minister [Carolyn] Bennett, Indigenous Services Minister [Jane] Philpott, and I are so happy that this day has come,” Trudeau said. “You’re the first 2,000 students in Manitoba in a First-Nations designed school system. This is historic.”

The students were elated to receive a response from the prime minister.

“I thought like, wow, he went out of his way to make a video to respond. Like props to him,” Gilmour told CTV Winnipeg.

Though Trudeau won’t be able to attend, students say the invitation still stands.

“He could come any day he wanted,” Pashe said.

The MFNSS was announced in December, 2016, when the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada signed the Education Governance Agreement.

On its official site, the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre says the system is about “ensuring a transformative, quality education system founded on First Nations languages, histories, and cultures to nurture each child’s identity and growth.”

The new school system is in accordance with the federal government’s Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Although the MFNSS is funded by the federal government, it is solely designed and operated by Manitoba’s First Nations.

“It’s First Nations managed and First Nations driven,” Nora Murdock, director of system development at the MFNSS, told CTV Winnipeg. “First Nations have a say in the priorities and how they want their children to be educated.”

Since July 2017, the MFNSS took responsibility for delivering and managing education programs and services to its participating First Nations.

So far 10 First Nations have already signed on for the preliminary five-year term: Bloodvein First Nation (Miskooseepi School), Brokenhead Ojibway Nation (Sergeant Tommy Prince School), Dakota Plains Wahpeton First Nation (Mahpiya Hdega School), Fox Lake Cree Nation (Fox Lake School), Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Nation (Keeseekoowenin School), Lake Manitoba First Nation (Lake Manitoba School), Lake St. Martin First Nation (Lake St. Martin School), Pinaymootang First Nation (Pinaymootang School), Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation (Ginew School), and York Factory Cree Nation (George Saunders Memorial School.)

In the future, other First Nations are welcome to join.

With a report from CTV Winnipeg’s Katherine Dow