A Centennial secondary graduate hopes to harness the power of music, dance, video and social media to promote the message of tolerance and understanding at his former high school. Calan Breckon will launch his Diversity Project at the school Feb. 24, the day after Pink Shirt Day, a national campaign that was started four years ago in response to a bullying incident against a boy wearing a pink shirt at a school in Nova Scotia. Centennial students will be invited to attend a concert featuring a performance by local singer/songwriter Rosette and dance performances by Mackenzie Green and Nathalie Heath from So You Think You Can Dance Canada. Students will then be invited to attend the first meeting of the school's Diversity Club and given a chance to participate in a documentary about the project. "We want to promote the idea that diversity is a good thing and everybody is the same in that they all want love, acceptance and understanding," said Breckon, 24, who graduated from Centennial in 2005. The club would be an expanded version of a gay-straight alliance the school used to have but people were sometimes too embarrassed to join. Breckon said he hopes the club will attract students with a wide variety of interests, from the arts to sports. Movie nights and other events will be planned, with the goal of making the club a fun and acceptable place to hang out. "It will be open to everyone, it doesn't matter who you are. We won't put labels on them," Breckon said. Participating students will have an opportunity to participate in a video documentary about the club and the importance of recognizing diversity at the school. The video will likely also canvass the opinions of staff and other Centennial students as well as parents, Breckon said, noting that a meeting will be held, likely in March, to explain to parents the purpose of the documentary. Grace Morissette, one of the sponsoring teachers, said the club will be broad-based, welcoming all forms of diversity - cultural, religious, socio-economic, sexual orientation, appearance, mental or physical challenges, academic or athletic. "It would be wonderful if the club could promote respect for and recognition of diversity. Our school has an increasingly intercultural mix of students as well as a diverse range of backgrounds and abilities - it would be nice to have students continue to interact without judging, stereotyping, or prejudice," Morissette wrote in an email. The club also has the backing of principal Rob Zambrano and Breckon said he's finalizing the paper work for School District 43 to make sure students have parental approval to get involved in the video documentary, He plans to screen the film at film festivals and is currently fundraising for the project at www.thediversityproject.ca. The idea for the Diversity Club and video came from Breckon's involvement in a social media campaign called It Gets Better in which adults share there views in a video that life gets better for gay and lesbian teens as they get older. The online video channel started last fall in response to a rash of teenage suicides. In his It Gets Better video posted at www.thediversityproject.ca, Breckon talks about the sense of isolation he felt growing up knowing he was gay but afraid to tell anybody about it. After posting the video, Breckon said he wanted to do more to help make life easier for gay and lesbian teens. "I wanted to help people on a larger scale." He raised $600 for the club at his birthday bash, got school administrators and teachers onside and started a Facebook page and Twitter account to raise awareness about the project. "I'm hoping it will have a snowball effect," said Breckon, who hopes the star quality of Green and Heath will attract students to the club's first meeting. "Hopefully, Centennial can lead the way in helping other schools start gay-straight alliance clubs. It should be a thing at all schools, it should be kind of normal." dstrandberg@shaw.ca
