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Elementary students learn about leadership

Students hand out flashlights to spread safety message
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shine a light L to R: Classmates Daniel Gannon, Kiana Soleil and Wei Tien Ho. photo submitted

With Whistler's darkened streets and high volumes of traffic, it's important to make yourself seen — that's the message being promoted by three students at Ecole La Passerelle as part of a Grade 6/7 leadership program.

"When people are walking on the highway at night and they're wearing either dark clothing or they don't have a light with them or something, it's really dangerous," said 12-year-old Kiana Soleil, who worked on the project with classmates Wei Tien Ho and Daniel Gannon, both 11.

"So we wanted people to be aware that you can't do this. You need to bring a light with you."

The students had originally wanted to raise awareness with a social media hashtag or a contest of some sort, but soon hit a roadblock — most social media sites require users to be at least 13 years of age.

So they went the old-fashioned route, and reached out to their local newspaper.

"We wanted people to read it in the newspaper, (and think) 'oh, this is a cool project, we should actually try to wear reflectors or bring lights,'" Soleil said.

"We'll reach a bigger audience (this way)."

To help spread their message even further, the students procured a box of small keychain flashlights from the Resort Municipality of Whistler and handed them out at the Village Gate Blvd. bus stop.

"This one really worked out for us... we thought it was a good idea so everyone could have lights for free," Ho said, adding that people were really happy to get the free flashlights.

Through working on the project, the students said they learned that leadership is about persistence, passion and cooperation.

"It was good to work in a team. I feel like I got to know them better because we were spending a lot of time together," Gannon said of his project partners.

"(Cooperation) was really important, because one person would do the emails, another person would do something else... we all had different ideas, completely different, and some of them didn't work, and some of them we had two different ones and we could put them together."

Some students at La Passerelle used their leadership projects to make cookbooks, while others recycled old T-shirts into reusable grocery bags.

Andree-Anne Boulanger, who teaches Grades 6 and 7 at La Passerelle, said her priority as a teacher is to make the students feel a sense of community both inside and outside of the classroom, and hopes they develop qualities like politeness and resilience through their leadership projects.

The students want to thank BC Transit and Emma DalSanto at the RMOW for providing the flashlights.

"It was really fun (doing the project) with friends, and you can just help people out sometimes," Ho said.

"In a small town you can be a big family."