Our Shared Sacrifice: The Briefs

‘Our Shared Sacrifice: The Briefs’ is the Canadian-led historical education and remembrance initiative that explores the shared wartime experiences of Canada and the soldiers of the British Indian Army during the First World War. Through a combination of a longer-form documentary and short AI-assisted historical vignettes, the project highlights underrepresented individuals and interconnected histories that shaped the early course of the war and continue to inform Canada’s multicultural identity today.

Canada’s First World War experience is well documented. The contributions of soldiers from the British Indian Army, many from the regions that would later become Pakistan and India, remain largely absent from mainstream Canadian remembrance narratives. These soldiers fought alongside Allied forces in the war’s earliest and most critical phases, sustaining immense casualties and helping to halt German advances in 1914–1915.

Created by high school students Daniyal Elahi and Harris Elahi, the project has been developed for broadcast, digital platforms, classrooms, and public history audiences, with a particular emphasis on respectful commemoration, inclusive historical education, inter-cultural understanding and engagement of youth audiences through accessible visual storytelling.