The Montreal-based non-profit, LOVE, has continued its work with Chateauguay Valley Regional High School students in the Alternative program and Work-oriented training path, through a series of online workshops in partnership with the Montérégie West Community Network.
This iteration of the LOVE (Leave Out Violence Everywhere) project started last year at CVR to help students strengthen their interpersonal skills and emotional regulation through media-arts and leadership-themed sessions. This year’s program again focused on photography and writing as a creative outlet for the students, and their work was displayed during a vernissage on May 14 to close out the project.
LOVE program director Cedric Joseph visited the school on four occasions to lead workshops in person. “The conversations were pretty productive and quite enlightening,” he says, noting that the Grade 10 participants really engaged with the process this year. “They really love group-based discussions and they really showed up there,” he adds.
“It was very engaging to watch the students evolve over the year and to watch [them] participate and share their thoughts,” says Joanne Basilieres of the MWCN, who helped facilitate the workshops.
For teachers Sayard Chartrand and Victoria Starnino, who both teach in the Alternative program, the opportunity to participate in the project is invaluable. “The students have grown in ways they never thought they could,” says Starnino.