Amnesty International backing Grassy Narrows youth with letter writing campaign

Amnesty International is backing youth from Grassy Narrows First Nation in their bid for clean water by focusing its annual, global letter writing campaign on the community's decades-long fight against toxic mercury poisoning.

The organization announced Monday that part of itsWrite for Rights campaign will focus on the First Nationat a kick-off event in Winnipeg.

There, youth from Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek, also known as Grassy Narrows First Nation, spoke about the devastating impact mercury poisoning has had on their community for more than half a century.

"I walk around my reserve everyday, and I see all the people are ... most of the time, they're never happy. I know that they're not happy on the inside, because of what's happening," said Paris Meekis, 15, who lives in the community.

"We've dealt with contaminated water for so long now, I guess we'd just rather not have people suffering and knowing that there is gonna be nothing done about it. We might as well put our message out there right here, right now."

Grassy Narrows is located about 100 kilometres northeast of Kenora, Ont. Former owners of a mill, located upstream from the community, in Dryden, dumped industrial effluent containing mercury into the English-Wabigoon river system in the 1960s and 1970s.

A report released last year shows mercury poisoning is having serious, detrimental effects on the health of youth and mothers in the First Nation, finding thatyouth in Grassy Narrows are demonstrating "a higher prevalence of the chronic conditions and emotional and behavioural issues that are associated with maternal fish consumption during pregnancy."

Last year, Amnesty International's letter writing campaign gathered 5.7 million letters of support, said Ana Collins, Indigenous rights advisor for Amnesty International Canada.

"It really means a lot to human rights defenders who sometimes feel alone in their struggles, and they maybe think ... that they haven't been heard," she said.

The campaign will begin on Dec. 10, which is also International Human Rights Day, and run for about a month.

The letters will be delivered to activists in the community as well as politicians.