 My name is Peter Cameron. I'm a grade 5-6 teacher at St. Elizabeth School in Clear Bandit area. The name of the program that my students and I established is called The Junior Waterwalkers. It started with my class in grade 5-6, but really it could be done by any class. We know that we have students who have joined who are as young as kindergarten and we have high school students and it really it's open to anyone. Josephine would want that. The Junior Waterwalkers is a school program, but again it can evolve and certainly become open and would be open to any community groups, organizations, businesses, even. So the aim of the program, I think maybe just to give a little bit of the history of the program first, is Josephine Mandemann is the original water walker and she's from Thunder Bay Ontario. She shares my home community and she began to walk for water in and about the year 2003 and the reason why she decided to begin to walk for Nive for water is because she was shared a prophecy and the prophecy was that by the year 2030 an ounce of water would be worth as much as an ounce of gold and then the Ogama who shared his prophecy with her said, and what are you going to do about it? And so she spent three years thinking about what she would do to protect water and she decided that she was going to walk the talk and so she decided to walk and first she walked around Lake Superior and then from there the movement grew and to date she's walked over 25,000 kilometers bringing awareness of the need to protect water and so one day my son and I were walking along a small inland lake in Thunder Bay and we passed by this Anishinaabe lady dressed in traditional clothing carrying an eagle-headed staff and a copper bucket and my son asked me you know what would this lady be doing and why was she dressed in that type of clothing and I said to Kai we can go back and ask her if he would like and the moment passed. Three weeks later I found Josephine Mandemann on the cover of a children's book called The Waterwalker and so I invited Josephine and the author Joanne Robertson to our class and my students had learned a little bit more about Josephine and I found that she had Parkinson's disease at the time and they decided that they were going to take up her walk. Josephine's greatest wish is that children continue to bring awareness to water and do something and walk for water and so at the time when she came to visit they also told her that they were going to become junior water walkers so the intent of the program is quite simple it's to honor Josephine Mandemann and to bring awareness of the need to protect water and so we really have four pillars which is simply learn about water adopt the body of water protect that water and then eventually walk for water and then my students decided we're a fairly well globally connected classroom they thought that we should invite other classes to join our walk for Nokomis and to date we have 153 classes from really all around the Great Lakes across Canada and beginning to spread throughout the world joining together in honor of Nokomis and to protect water it is the junior water walkers website which my kids helped me to develop and yeah so people are signing on they're using the book The Waterwalker as kind of a of a beginning piece and then simply becoming an inquiry for for all the classes who are participating everybody is kind of going in their own direction but with two simple goals really to to learn about and protect water so it's the water conservation or protection piece but it's also the piece to we're encouraging people to connect with their indigenous community and to learn about the traditions and the ceremonies that that revolve around the water as well so really what what we're doing right now we're we're focused focused on the first pillar we're simply learning about water and so my students every year I read title to the seed to my students and it's a it's a romantic journey through the Great Lakes starting in Nipigen which is only an hour east of Thunder Bay and it takes kids on a voyage throughout the Great Lakes but really based in 1942 they also have access to Google Earth and a Voyager story that I actually helped create called Blue Gold and so they get to take a virtual journey throughout the Great Lakes and it helps them understand just how great the Great Lakes are or we live on the largest source of fresh water in the world but also it's important for them to understand that that even our Great Lakes are at risk so we're learning about that we've watched a couple of documentaries one created by Jill Heinerth who's an underwater cave diver and she brings awareness of the need to protect this great resource that we have as well and then we've also watched a documentary on on Josephine on Nokomis a mandaman and it's it's the story of of her water walk and also the story of so many of the traditions that that were so important to her during her water walk and to now our second step actually the rest of the classes at St. Elizabeth school have joined the junior water walkers which would be my grade five six class and the sixth class were kind of you know the core of the junior water walkers but as my colleagues have heard more about the junior water walkers they've decided that it has to be a school-wide activity and so the younger ones are going to learn from my students and the great six students what it means to be a junior water walker the story of the junior water walkers and who inspired the junior water walkers so they'll be going and making presentations to the younger classes and then it'll be up to the school to decide on a body of water that they're going to adopt we're going to figure out how we can protect that body of water but also water in general and then on a Friday in May our school will go out and walk at that body of water as I've alluded to before Josephine simply said one of her greatest wishes is that young people will take up her cause and do something to protect water or really I believe Josephine just wants people to do something whether or not it become an awareness and and the need to protect water or another activism piece as well but I think it's important that that kids really do know and understand who Josephine Vandeman was she lives in Thunder Bay and I really didn't know anything about Josephine so I think it's important that we we learn from Josephine and I think the success of the program will be based on how many people Josephine has inspired and I think it's already fairly successful my students have done some math and they figured out that in May together with the rest of the junior water walkers there will be over a million steps taken in honor of my vision is that the great grand scheme is really Josephine said water connects us all and that is pretty profound I mean I can't think of any other thing in the world that binds us and brings us all together so you know the whole the whole goal or the big dream is that we help to make the world just a little bit better of a place already great but it can be better it's it's open for anyone from around the world and and it's something that the kids really get excited about because they have their hand in kind of directing where I guess our footprints will lead our footsteps will lead to