When her small village in Mozambique is attacked by bandits and her father is killed, Sofia Alface, her sister, Maria, brother, Alfredo, and mother, Lydia, flee, walking for days in search of somewhere safe. They finally find and are welcomed into a second village, where Mother Lydia builds a hut and joins the village [...]
After her mother’s death from AIDS, sixteen year-old Chanda Kabelo struggles to bring up her six year-old sister, Iris, and her five year-old brother, Solly. Though her former high school teacher, Mr. Selalame, has helped her get a supply teaching job at the local elementary school, her neighbours, the gossipy and overly intrusive yet [...]
Lily likes walking home from school with her mother, waving to Frank, the crossing guard, and visiting Mrs. Chan’s store for milk and the occasional treat. But, when she bumps into a homeless man selling newspapers on her street, Lily is overcome with shyness and fear. The man’s raggedy appearance and wild hair, and his [...]
Fatimah is a young carpet weaver who lives and works in a small stone and tin shed behind the courtyard of her master’s big house in Lahore, Pakistan. Bonded to that master after her parents contracted a small debt to a local money lender, she has worked at her loom since she was five [...]
Fifteen year-old Ian needs 40 hours of community service if he wants to pass Grade 10 Civics. Since he’s left it so long, he ends up in one of the most demanding volunteer placements available, serving food to homeless men at The Club, a soup kitchen on the wrong side of town. Though [...]
Students in one of our Grade 3 classes recently completed a quilt which they have donated to Design Hope Toronto, who raise money and awareness for local organizations who help Toronto’s homeless. The quilt will be auctioned off at Design Hope Toronto’s Gala on Friday, February 8th at the Modern Weave, 160 King [...]
Twelve year-old Stephen Majok lives with his sixteen year-old sister, Naomi, and their mother in a small village in southern Sudan. Though civil war rages around them, the villagers are more preoccupied with looking for the first clouds that will herald the rainy season, desperately needed after three years of drought. The village’s [...]
Marjane Satrapi is a young girl when revolution comes to Iran in the late 1970s. Living with her parents in Tehran where she attends a private school and enjoys all the normal activities of children, she listens as her parents, both socialist intellectuals with communist leanings, discuss 2500 of tyranny and submission beginning with [...]
Thirteen year-old Maleeka Madison is laughed at and called names by her classmates. Tall and reed-thin and black, she is called beanpole and taunted because of her skin colour. To make matters worse, she wears clothes made by her mother, which often don’t fit properly, and she’s been a straight A student, a [...]
Living with her family in Gaza City, eleven year-old Malaak knows the family stories about their lives in Jerusalem and in Palestine before 1948. Loss of their lands following the creation of the state of Israel and the presence of ever more numerous Jewish settlers in Gaza leaves a bitter taste in the mouths [...]
