Principal: ‘You all belong here’
Educator strives to reassure jittery students after Quebec mosque shooting
KITCHENER — The day after six Muslim men were gunned down while praying at a Quebec City mosque, Rania Lawendy had children crying in her office.
One child said, “I go to the mosque all the time. What if someone tries to kill me?” Lawendy’s nine-year-old daughter also had a difficult question: “Why do people hate us?”
Lawendy, an elementary school principal at the Muslim Association of Canada Maple Grove School on Courtland Avenue in Kitchener, told the children that Muslims are not hated and showed them the outpouring of love and support the school received from community members, politicians, police and ordinary citizens.
“You all belong here. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t,” Lawendy told the children.
But during reflective moments over the past week, Lawendy admits that the Jan. 29 shooting of six Muslim men as they prayed shook her to her core.
Alexandre Bissonnette, a 27-year-old Laval University student, faces six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Lawendy received a frantic phone call on the Sunday night of the attack from a friend in Mississauga who had been in contact with another friend who was at the Quebec City mosque. That friend had gone to a car to retrieve something and wasn’t in the building when the shots were fired.
Monday morning Lawendy was on a conference call with other Muslim leaders as the group talked about how to handle the crisis and planned a rally for Monday night. She emailed her 18 teaching staff and asked them to speak to their students if they were asked questions.
Lawendy, who also volunteers as a chaplain at the University of Waterloo, went from class to class to let students know they could speak to her any time if they felt upset.
She called police, who came to the school on Monday and Tuesday. They also increased patrols around the school.
Lawendy initiated a “hold and secure” at the school for two days after the attack to ensure the children’s safety. “I didn’t believe something would happen, but you don’t want to be one per cent wrong,” she said.
In a hold and secure, school continues as normal in the building but no one is allowed in or out and students do not go outside for recess.
Even parents called crying and needed to be consoled, she said.
This week, at the school of 260 students, there are still reminders of the mosque shooting. On each door that leads outside, a piece of paper written in capital letters reads: Do not open the door to anyone.
And although many were shocked by the shooting, Lawendy said we shouldn’t be.
She blames the former Stephen Harper government for “cashing in (on) isolationist politics” and the controversy over face coverings in Quebec.
“We like to blame (U.S. President Donald)
We … have to say we are going to stand against any type of racist rhetoric. RANIA LAWENDY
Trump, but this has been brewing here,” she said. “We as Canadians have to say we are going to stand against any type of racist rhetoric.”
Lawendy, a mother of four, was born and raised in Waterloo but she’s experienced difficult moments because of her dress which includes the hijab.
As a student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, she recalled, she once had her hijab pulled off her head by another student.
In another instance, while at a local courthouse to pay a traffic ticket, the clerk assumed she couldn’t speak English and asked her if she needed an interpreter.
Lawendy and her five siblings went to French immersion school.
After high school, she attended the University of Waterloo and graduated with a biochemistry degree. She recently received a master’s degree in education. Along with English, she speaks French and Arabic.
Lawendy says she is hopeful that Canadians will support each other and “build bridges rather than building walls.”
“As a society, we need outreach. Ignorance breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence,” she said.