From hurt to healing, Toronto students learn Ojibwe-themed yoga

Toronto teacher helps students learn Ojibwe Students at Wandering Spirit School in Toronto’s east end are learning Ojibwe.

TORONTO — Students at Wandering Spirit School in Toronto’s east end are learning Ojibwe.

“It helped me to connect to who I am and my culture,” said Grade 3 student Jovani Sherwood.

Jovani’s schoolmates feel the same.

“I think it’s fun and it’s think it’s easier for me to do than French,” said Grade 6 student Kasmina Providence.

In addition to Ojibwe, students are learning yoga at the same time.

Amy White is their teacher. She learned the language to honour her late grandmother - Eliza White - a survivor of the residential school system.

The teacher decided to learn Ojibwe after high-school to fill the missing piece of her identity and to continue her grandmothers legacy.

The emotional damage her grandmother Eliza White experienced was long term.

“I would always hug her and it wasn’t until she was 80, maybe 81, where she hugged me back once and I said ‘I love you, Grandma’ and she said ‘I do love you too.’ That was a big moment because she’s said it once,” White said.

Stemming back to late 1800s, thousands of Indigenous children were sent to boarding schools; neglected, abused and stripped of their culture.

“I’ve really only heard her speak the language once,” she said.

The inter-generational trauma runs deep, which is why White wanted to turn the hurt into healing.

Through a bursary provided by a restitution fund, she launched an Ojibwe-themed yoga class.

“Whenever I feel stressed, I do it,” said Sherwood.

Parents with Indigenous backgrounds feel encouraged by the program.

“It’ll mold who she is as a young woman and be more in tune with herself and where she’s from,” said Fatima Laporte, Kasmina’s mother.