Northern Ontario student places second in national speech contest

A Grade 10 student at White Pines Collegiate in Sault Ste. Marie is being celebrated by her teachers, family and peers for her big achievement in an annual public speaking competition.

Nevaeh Pine, of Garden River First Nation, recently placed second in a national speech contest in which students spoke on various human rights issues and how to go about solving them.

The competition, Speaker's Idol, is put on each year by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. Pine was among 250 students from across Canada to participate and her speech centred on Canada’s residential schools.

"Because it happened in our country and we need to stop it and stop the discrimination and racism. Because if we don’t work together and put our voices together and educate each other on it and learn about it, we cannot change the future," Pine said.

Avital Borisovsky, the associate director of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal, said the judges were impressed with Pine’s passionate delivery.

"The judges were very impacted by both her speech as well as her delivery," she said. "It was very emotional, it was very powerful."