Good morning.
My name is Susan Mousseau. I'm a senior director of the Juno Beach Centre Association. I'm also the daughter of Lise Cooper, a co-founder of the Juno Beach Centre, and the late George Cooper, a D-Day veteran. My grandfather was a World War I veteran.
For those who may not be familiar with our charitable organization, the Juno Beach Centre Association, also referred to as the JBCA, is parent to the Juno Beach Centre museum located in Courseulles-sur-mer, Normandy, France.
I would first like to thank Veterans Affairs for their Canada Remembers program, which ensures that Canadians are made aware of the sacrifices and contributions of our veterans, and for their many initiatives to encourage all Canadians to become actively involved in remembrance and commemoration.
Similarly, the objectives of the JBCA are also remembrance and commemoration. Through our outreach programs to youth, we understand the value of education as a conduit for remembrance and commemoration. I hope that by sharing our concepts and listening to those of the other presenting groups, we can all benefit.
We have put together our presentation based on four main questions and concepts. Those are: what the Juno Beach Centre does in terms of its remembrance services for veterans; what is being done with remembrance education for students; ideas or thoughts on ongoing remembrance concepts for the 21st century; and lastly, our ongoing connections with teachers who have visited the Juno Beach Centre or taken part in our educators tour.
I'll go through these one by one and then hopefully have time for any questions.
Remembrance activities for veterans are accomplished in a number of ways. We conduct large remembrance ceremonies on June 6 and November 11. The JBC staff take time to meet and chat with each and every veteran who visits the centre. We host special events for regimental or family groups or any other group that includes veterans. The centre has book-signing sessions for historical writers and conducts unveiling ceremonies. We feature special temporary or travelling exhibits dedicated to veterans. We have incorporated a passport system into our tour of the museum to feature veterans' biographies, and we maintain a collection of Canadian veterans' first-person accounts and a special book for families to write stories in.
The next concept presented is remembrance and education for students. This can be broken down into three categories: our education programs; networking programs; and fundraising activities.
As education programs, the Juno Beach Centre offers both elementary and secondary school programs. Our elementary school program is titled “The D-Day Soldier” and “A Canadian Nurse During the Battle of Normandy”. This is a storytelling session with a young Canadian guide, and includes artifacts for children aged eight to eleven to touch and interact with. Dressed as a soldier or nurse, the guide tells a first-person story of a Canadian in Normandy in 1944.
Based on the memoirs and testimonies of real Canadian soldiers and nurses, children relate to the realities of war in a much more personal way. This program is unique and now in its fifth year of operation. Complex notions—like that of the Allies crossing the Atlantic Ocean, being far away from home, experiencing fear and fatigue, and returning to Canada as a changed person—become easily understood by the young ones, thanks to this innovative program.
Our secondary school program is titled “History on Wheels”. This is an artifact-based animation for secondary school students, where they can manipulate a large selection of Second World War artifacts. As a JBC guide explains each object, the students explore a number of important themes related to the daily life of a Canadian soldier in Normandy.
The idea of enlisting voluntarily, the sense of belonging and camaraderie, friendship, morale, fear, food, hunger, hygiene, contact with French civilians, news from home—all of these are concepts the students become familiar with in order to better understand the hardships Canadian soldiers and their families faced.
In addition to the school programs, the Juno Beach Centre includes permanent exhibitions adapted to young audiences. At the centre, fictional young characters named Peter and Madeleine help youngsters better navigate the exhibits. There are also family games and quizzes available for all levels.
A final area of education programs involves our brick purchases. To commemorate the sacrifice of Canadian Second World War veterans and to recognize the support of project donors, the JBCA offers the opportunity to purchase engraved plaques, or bricks as we refer to them. These personalized bricks are mounted on kiosks in front of the Juno Beach Centre in Normandy. Two types of bricks are available, those honouring a specific veteran and more general donor bricks.
As an extension of this program, the Juno Beach Centre memorial-brick campaign and resource guide was developed in collaboration with teachers from the Halton public and Catholic school boards to honour the sacrifices of local World War II soldiers. Teachers and students commemorate the sacrifices of local soldiers by raising awareness and funds to purchase commemorative bricks for those soldiers who paid the supreme sacrifice. This Halton pilot project has become the model for many similar remembrance and commemoration projects across Canada.
Over the years, thousands of Canadian high school students have raised money for the purchase of bricks and held their own remembrance ceremonies on site. The Juno Beach Centre creates and maintains relations with schools all across the country in order to raise awareness and remembrance.
The JBCA's professional development tour for Canadian educators recently completed its seventh annual tour to Normandy and has brought well over 150 Canadian teachers as participants.
In addition to our education programs, the Juno Beach Centre is actively engaged in networking with various boards of education, teacher associations, and educational organizations.
Fundraising is, of course, at the heart of all Canadian teachers' desire to bring their students over. We try to help these teachers find creative fundraising solutions. School exchanges between France and Canada are plenty, and the Juno Beach Centre has created local partnerships over the years as well.
In the process of brick purchases, students do research on a particular soldier, perhaps a graduate of their high school or a member of their families, and the unveiling ceremony often happens on site at the JBC. Some have travelled with a veteran, but more and more they have travelled to the centre with a specific remembrance mission in the name of one or many veterans.
When these ceremonies take place, the JBC invites local French representatives, surviving D-Day witnesses, and survivors among the French conscripted labour for the building of the Atlantic Wall, all of whom students get to meet and experience their stories first-hand on the beaches where history happened. The result is quite unique, as no other format of remembrance ceremony can be as inclusive of various aspects of Canadian Second World War history, including a better understanding of the French people whom the Canadians came to liberate.
This concludes our summary of the JBC's remembrance education for students.
Next are some ideas or thoughts on ongoing remembrance concepts. Through our Canadian guide program, the JBC is deeply committed to the future of remembrance. Our guides, today's youth, are both the recipients and transmitters of Canadian World War II history. In our education program, we have youth teaching youth about remembrance, and in the case of our regular public programs, we have our youth teaching other generations about remembrance.
Since the JBC is an authentic site experience, as time passes the physical reminders of war take on more and more importance. The development of the Juno Park area, with the restoration of the bunker and newly discovered tunnels, is incredibly important.
Public programming in our permanent and temporary exhibitions continues, as do animations by our guides for regular public displays. We continue outreach programs to local schools and are developing e-learning tools along with the live transmission of ceremonies in sync with large commemorative events in Canada.
The JBC is helping to fund the development of the Library and Archives nationally acclaimed Lest We Forget project. The project is a Second World War web resource created by Governor General's and Veterans Affairs award-winning educator Blake Seward. It will include new online tools and interactive resources to support students researching Second World War military service files.
The final concept being presented is the Juno Beach professional development educator's tour. The JBC gives a significant bursary to Canadian educators who participate in our annual professional development tour. Those participating are given university-level briefings at all historical stops. Participants spend time with French veterans and citizens to commemorate the sacrifices of our Canadian soldiers. This trip is an emotional experience for all involved, and creates lifelong advocates for the Juno Beach Centre itself. Every teacher who takes part goes home with a renewed and emotional desire to make sure remembrance in their school continues.
I'd like to share a quote from one of our tour participants.
The JBC Educator's Trip provided me with an unforgettable opportunity to learn about our great country's war history. No other life experience can compare to walking the battlefields of Normandy or standing in the hauntingly silent cemeteries amongst the soldiers. Nothing has been so meaningful and moving in my years of teaching. I returned home with new life-long friendships and with deeper understanding which has brought a whole new perspective to my teaching and working with students.
The JBC stays connected with all past tour participants through a quarterly newsletter. We are in the process of establishing Facebook and social media sites to help these teachers stay connected and engaged.
Some success stories prove that once teachers or school groups go to the centre, their passion is ignited. One school in Calgary is actually named the Juno Beach Academy, and they do their graduation ceremony on-site at the JBC. Another group is coming for the fourth time, and has purchased a total of over 80 memorial bricks so far. Students across Canada are involved in the brick campaign to recognize soldiers from their communities.
In conclusion, we all have an opportunity to involve the youth of Canada in active remembrance and commemoration, and we must continue this important mission. The JBCA sees the need for everyone involved to use his or her resources to actively engage youth. Facebook and Twitter are a good start, or any other available means to help Canadian youth to ask the critical questions and get them actively involved. We hope that through this committee new ideas and approaches can emerge and be shared.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope we'll have some questions later.