Barrie teen pays respects at Vimy Ridge ceremony in France

Pania Ghaneian of Barrie, Ont., is one of 20 Canadian students chosen for a Vimy Pilgrimage Award from the Vimy Foundation. (Supplied)

Wednesday is Vimy Ridge Day and a 16-year-old Barrie student is one of twenty selected from across the country, to travel to Europe and pay respects and honour the history.

Pania Ghaneian is a grade 11 student at Barrie North Collegiate and a recipient of the Vimy Pilgrimage Award from the Vimy foundation.

“The application process consisted of an essay about some aspect of the First World War, I wrote mine about the contributions of children to the war efforts,” says Ghaneian .

“It also required a resume, a personal essay, a letter of recommendation, and a personal statement video,” added Ghaneian who says a shortlist of applicants were then selected for an interview.

The Vimy Foundation picks twenty youth from all over the country through a selective and comprehensive application process, to support the foundation’s goal of commemorating and spreading awareness about Canada’s contributions to the First World.

Since 2013, the Vimy Foundation has been offering the Vimy Pilgrimage Award to students 15 to 17 years of age to join a week-long, fully funded program.

Award recipients travel to Belgium and France to visit key sites, major museums, historic battlefields, cemeteries and memorials including the Canadian National Vimy Memorial on Vimy Day.

The teens attend educational lectures, participate in special commemorative ceremonies, and are introduced to ideas and perspectives not typically taught in classrooms. This year the Vimy Foundation selected students from British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

On Tuesday, the students visited Notre Dame de Lorette and Bois-Carré British Cemetery before reflecting at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

Vimy Ridge Day is observed annual on April 9, so the group commemorated the battle of Vimy Ridge, a pivotal moment in Canadian military history, and the first time all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together as a single unit, marking a significant step towards Canadian national identity.

“I was so excited to go see the namesake of this program, the Canadian Vimy Memorial, and attend the ceremony for Vimy Ridge Day,” says Ghaneian.

“This memorial is such an important aspect of commemorating the soldiers that fought so courageously for our country, so I looked forward to visiting and paying my respects, she continued.

The group of talented teens, along with hundreds of others, participated in the Vimy Ridge Day Ceremony this morning.

“The monument is so much bigger than it seems on the twenty dollar bill and just being there and capturing it’s beauty – it was honestly surreal,“ says Ghaneian.

“It was also very touching and it was upsetting in a way as well, because you see the names that are on the memorial. There’s 11,265 names on the memorial and that’s just a small portion of Canadian soldiers that passed away during the war”.

The trip, steeped in rich history, will bring the group to Belgium next to pay respects to First World War sites, museums, cemeteries and battlefields found there.