Storybook ending for student warming hut winners

Manitoba’s newest student-designed warming hut doubles as a public awareness campaign for a child advocacy centre.

Bison Run School has partnered with the Toba Centre for Children and Youth to create “Cozy Up With a Book.”

The triangular structure, which mimics an upside-down novel, is being decorated with information about the local charity that supports young victims of abuse and their families.

A QR code installed on the outside of the hut will take anyone who scans it to the centre’s website.

“Toba Centre gives a kid a voice when they feel like they don’t have one,” said Arya Samim, one of the Grade 7 students who’s spent the better part of the 2025-26 school year working on the project.

The 12-year-old said she and her co-designers want students who visit their warming hut on the Nestaweya River Trail to know they are loved and not alone.

The interactive installation will encourage visitors to write words of encouragement and book recommendations on pieces of fabric that will hang inside it, resembling pages of a book.

Students are planning to outfit the hut with markers and reading materials, including self-published works by peers at Bison Run, in a little free library on site.

The finished project will be unveiled on Jan. 23.

Faizah Ibrahim, a 12-year-old who read more than 200 books last year, came up with the idea to build a hut that resembles a novel.

Faizah said she hopes the installation encourages others to pick up more books this year.

“It’s about give and take,” she said, adding she’s excited to read book suggestions from visitors.

Her current recommendation? Any book by Kiera Cass, an American writer best known for her dystopian young-adult fiction series, The Selection.

Bison Run beat out six other schools to win The Forks and Sputnik Architecture’s 2026 student warming hut competition.

The judges consider each applicant’s originality, their pitch to highlight new voices and perspectives, and plans for outreach in their communities.

Toba Centre’s chief executive officer credited the kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school in Waverley West for reaching out to find out how it could help raise awareness about the charity.

“The idea of kids helping kids is a beautiful thing. It sends a pretty powerful message to other young people,” Christy Dzikowicz said.

There are about 4,000 child abuse investigations annually in Manitoba.

Law enforcement and child protection agencies refer victims to Toba Centre. Last year, the centre received referrals from 69 different RCMP detachments.

Its multidisciplinary response team encompasses victim advocates, a mental health clinician, forensic nurse, forensic pediatrician and police officers, among others.

Dzikowicz noted that child abuse and maltreatment is a sensitive, albeit important, topic to discuss with students so they know there are resources available to help. “What we do know about child abuse is that it thrives in secrecy,” she said.

Teacher-librarian Tytanya Fillion recalled getting in touch with Toba Centre after a successful field trip to visit its Bison on the Boulevard installation last year.

“Learning outside the classroom is more powerful in my mind than inside the classroom,” Fillion said, noting that new environments and guest speakers give students new perspectives.

As Grade 7 students began learning about structures in science this fall, Fillion proposed an interdisciplinary project involving all 90 children enrolled in that grade.

Students had the opportunity to check out public art downtown and at The Forks as part of the project, she said.

In total, there were 22 preliminary designs, including a Slurpee, loonie and bird’s nest.

Students used their school’s 3D printers to create preliminary models and seek input from Sputnik and Anvil Architecture. The latter constructed the roughly four-metre-tall hut.

While a dozen children were chosen to carry out the final design, Fillion said the project has encompassed the entire school.

With the help of Métis artist Casandra Woolever, dozens of students and staff members helped create a communal ceinture fléchée (sash) that will be embedded into the warming hut’s massive bookmark.

Students have also collected more than 700 signatures on a faux fireplace that will be set up inside the warming hut.

The creators printed out pages of books in different languages to decorate the fireplace to represent the diversity of their school community.

“We wanted this to be the story of our school,” Fillion said.

There are more than 50 different languages spoken among families at the school.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca