Teenage advocate of native education in Canada becomes comics superhero

VITAMIN W Staff

VITAMIN W Staff

[photo]                                                                                                                                                                                                          Shannen Koostachin, a teenage activist in Canada who died before ever seeing the results of her work, has inspired a new hero in the DC Universe.

By Christopher Zumski Finke, YES! Magazine / March 11, 2014: This week, we got our first glimpse of DC Comics' newest character: a teenage girl from James Bay, Canada—and a member of the Cree, one of the largest First Nations in North America.
    Created by writer Jeff Lemire, this character is inspired by real-life teenager Shannen Koostachin, a youth activist who died tragically in 2010.
The Daily Globe and Mail summed Koostachin up simply: "She had moxie." After learning about her life—how she inspired kids and changed her community—the sentiment seems an understatement.
    A Cree member from the Attawapiskat First Nation in the remote James Bay in Ontario, Koostachin was an activist for native education in Canada.
     At 13, she organized a campaign to get the temporary school in her community replaced with a permanent and safe school that offered high-quality and culturally relevant education for First Nations students.
      Her persistent engagement led to rallies and online campaigns, and drew media attention from around Canada. When the federal government claimed they didn't have the funds to build a new school, her class canceled their annual field trip to send Shannen to meet with the Minister of Indian Affairs.
It would be another year before the government promised to build a new school for the Attawapiskat children. That same year Koostachin was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize.
     Then, in 2010, when she was 15, Koostachin was killed in a car accident. She never saw the school that was built as a result of her passion and advocacy.
    Her activism on behalf of education for First Nations kids continues in the youth movement that bears her name, Shannen's Dream. The movement, according to its website, seeks to educate and engage "Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to better understand the education inequities" that exist in Canadian education system for First Nation children...Continue reading...