A display that makes quite the visual statement is being sent by Georgian College students to Queen’s Park.
Early Childhood Education student Annya Pucan says as part of an Ethics and Advocacy project, her class has created a mural covered with over 35-hundred hand prints.
Each one represents 100 children in Ontario living in poverty.
The mural is so big, it was able to wrap each side of the halls of the Owen Sound campus.
Pucan says as ECE’s, she and her fellow classmates see first hand the effects of child poverty in the community.
She adds since local schools and daycares also deal with the problem on a daily basis, that’s where they went to have local children make the hand prints.
Pucan says they’re hoping to get the government to show greater commitment to the ’25 in 5 Poverty Reduction Strategy’ and provide a reminder of the promise made in 2000 to have child poverty eliminated in Ontario by 2007.
The students have asked the local MPP to present the mural to the legislature and Bill Murdoch says he’s more than happy to do so.
The Bruce Grey Owen Sound MPP says having a visual representation of such an important issue makes his job easier.
He says you can always get up and say a lot, but if you have something to show the legislature it helps to drive your point home.
Murdoch says his office has applied to make the presentation of the hand prints to Premier Dalton McGuinty next week.