Canadian Maritime Heritage Foundation
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Mission Statement
The Canadian Maritime Heritage Foundation works closely with the leaders and staff of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic to develop and fund inclusive maritime heritage programs that not only help raise public awareness of our maritime heritage and celebrate its continuing relevance, but which also seek to serve the full diversity of people in our community, especially those who have too often been marginalized.
About This Cause
Our Project: Our sole project is the creation of a Boat School at the Maritime Museum to serve kids-at-risk from Mi’kmaw, African Nova Scotian, and Immigrant communities and young women. It is the most recent result of the transformative journey we’ve been on with our museum partners for the past two decades. Building Boats, Changing Lives: For years the Museum’s Boatbuilder has been working with kids-at-risk through a pilot program the Museum calls Building Boats, Changing Lives. Participants in this program work as a team to take a pile of wood and build something that actually floats. Along the way, they learn to respect tools and care for them; they learn how to listen to instructions and follow them carefully; learn to work safely; and they learn to recognize their successes and celebrate them together. Again and again, at the end of Building Boats, Changing Lives sessions, the youth say, “I feel accomplished!” This sense of accomplishment can have a life-changing impact on them and result in their positive engagement within our communities. Here are links to two videos that capture the impact of these programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGypdvkpfzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4bQ7V2Iug4 The Need for a new Boat School: The Building Boats, Changing Lives pilot program has been very impactful, but it’s always been shoe-horned into the cramped space between the classic Nova Scotian wooden boats stored in the Museum’s Boatshop, or on the deck of the CSS Acadia, or off-site, and so only available to roughly 50 youth a year. At present, the demand for their programs far outstrips the Museum’s capacity to deliver. Once the new Boat School is built and up-and-running, it will be able to deliver these life-changing programs to hundreds of youth-in-need every year. The Boat School’s Impact on Young People: Based on what Museum staff have learned from the Building Boats, Changing Lives pilot, the Boat School will provide youth-empowering boatbuilding workshops and other programs for kids-at-risk from Mi’kmaw, African Nova Scotian, Immigrant, and disadvantaged communities across the province and for young women. The aim is to reach young people at risk of disappearing from the economic and social lifeblood of their communities, or who have already done so. Boat School programs will help to prepare our young participants for a life that breaks out of a cycle of poverty and expands our community’s work force by learning to work as a team to set and achieve common goals and important life lessons. Such take-aways from Boat School programs will be important whether the youth end up at Irving Shipyards, working as a heavy equipment operator, running a farm, working at Dollarama, going to sea, or perhaps becoming a lawyer.