“The truth is: Belonging starts with self acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self acceptance because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable, and imperfect.”
Brene Brown
This quote tells people that you just need to accept your talents and weaknesses, and just go with the flow.
It makes you realize that belonging is just a feeling, and if you be yourself, it will come to you.
This is one of the important lessons I learned when I was lucky enough to go and see the Dalai Lama speak at We Day this year in October.
One of the strongest messages that the Dalai Lama spoke of was bringing compassion into the community and to the people around us. It left me wondering how I could bring compassion into our community and our school. We Day inspired both myself, and the Do Good committee, to look for more opportunities in the school to promote compassion and to find a way to increase a sense of belonging.
I always feel like the world is a puzzle and every human being is a piece looking for a place to fit. At Brooksbank elementary, the Do Good Committee is looking for a way to promote a sense of belonging in the school so that every person in the school (students, staff and other adults) all feel like they have a place to belong.
We are trying to do this by hosting a scare hunger campaign, multicultural day, celebrating Pink Shirt Day, running a newspaper and an environment club, and participating in many ongoing projects in the school.
It is our hope that by having so many different activities to participate in everyone will find their own place to fit. When everyone has somewhere that they feel like they fit then they can find their own self acceptance.
Frances Kerr is a Grade 7 student at Brooksbank elementary.
This column originally appeared in a Pink Day special section of the North Shore News print version.
