Middle schoolers create 10,000-piece mosaic to honour residential school survivor

This year for Every Child Matters — The Power of the Individual to Effect Change, students in Saint John focused on residential school survivor Andrea Simon, who is now an elder of Abegweit First Nation. (Nipun Tiwari/CBC)

 

VIDEO:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/project-orange-mosaic-saint-john-bayside-middle-school-9.7220810 

 

Canada pledges millions to search for residential school graves

By Al Jazeera Staff | 10 Aug 2021 

Warning: The story below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.

 

Canada has promised tens of millions of dollars to help Indigenous communities in their search for unmarked graves linked to the government’s decades-long residential school system, which a commission of inquiry said in 2015 amounted to “cultural genocide”.

Hundreds of unmarked graves have been discovered since late May on the grounds of residential schools across Canada.

Between the late 1800s and 1990s, more than 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend the institutions, which aimed to forcibly assimilate them and destroy their cultures. Thousands of children are believed to have died there.

In a news conference in August, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett said the government would provide an additional $66.2m ($83 million Canadian dollars) to help communities search for unmarked graves.

“As a country, we know the truth. Once you know the truth, you cannot unknow it. First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities have lived with the trauma caused by residential schools for generations,” Bennett said. “So today, we are announcing an additional $83 million in funding … to support more Indigenous communities in this extremely difficult and necessary work.”

The announcement comes as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is widely expected to trigger a snap election in the coming months amid countrywide calls for his government to do more to address the intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools.

Since hundreds of graves were first discovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in the western province of British Columbia in late May, Indigenous community leaders and residential school survivors and their families have been plunged into renewed trauma.

They have demanded Ottawa support Indigenous-led efforts to find more unmarked graves and pressure the Catholic Church – which ran most of the institutions – to release its records, apologise and pay reparations.

 

A child holds a flag that reads 'Every Child Matters' during a march in British Columbia after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at residential schools across Canada [File: Kevin Light/Reuters]

Source: Al Jazeera

 

Keep reading

Canada: 182 unmarked graves found at another residential school

Will Canada face criminal charges for residential school abuses?

More unmarked residential school graves discovered in Canada

Canada: Protesters demand investigation into residential schools

 

There’s a new federal holiday in Canada in September. What does it mean for you?

By Allison Bamford 

For the first time, Sept. 30 will mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Files / Global News

 

For the first time, Sept. 30 will mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

In June, Ottawa declared it a federal statutory holiday that is meant to give public servants an opportunity to recognize the legacy of residential schools.

Saskatoon: People of today have inherited the aftermath #TRC

Chief Delorme says ‘reset’ needed on reconciliation journey

Saskatoon |CKOM News | Jun 25, 2021 |

Marking the Graves (Cowessess First Nation/Submitted)

Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme was not expecting the number of unmarked graves on the former Marieval Indian Residential School site to be as high as 751.

The search involved the use of ground-penetrating radar. Flags mark the positions of the once-concealed burial plots.

Delorme told Gormley on Friday morning that when the search began, technicians brought just 200 flags, running out on the first day.

“We’re like, ‘What are we getting into here? What is the reality of this?’ And by the end of the week, it got very emotional, very heavy,” Delorme said.

At first glance, the burial ground appears to be an empty field. Delorme recalled running through the area as a child. “Just kids being kids,” he said. But it was known that the graves were beneath their feet. Oral stories told of their existence.

“We were always told, ‘Walk on the path, walk on the path,’ ” he said.

Delorme said the Oblates arrived in 1886.  (Catholic Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate) That location was the gravesite for the Roman Catholic Church, so there were non-Indigenous people buried there as well. The Marieval Indian Residential School opened in 1898.

He said the search started June 2 on the east side of the field, going west.

“We were doing two metre by two metre the first day, and then we were like, ‘Oh, maybe we should do one metre by one metre,’ ” Delorme said.

That’s when the flags were planted and it became apparent there were children buried.

“OK, so one metre by one metre, that means that there’s not full adults here,” Delorme said.

In 1970, the burial ground became a community cemetery, no longer under control of the Oblates and priests, Delorme said. Grave markers from that point on are there today.

“So that’s why it’s somewhat challenging to talk about because it is the community gravesite today. We honour that,” he said. “But there was almost 80 years where the priests had a say, who did and who didn’t belong in that gravesite.”

Delorme’s advice for people to play a role in reconciliation is a mental “reset.”

“There is real anger and pain amongst many of my people. And that anger and pain is there because of the ignorance and the accidental racism and it just triggers,” he said.

He said Indigenous people are “trying to get out of this dependence state,” while also focusing on political sovereignty and cultural rejuvenation.

When asked about those who wish to “cancel” Canada Day, Delorme said he was “in no capacity to tell anybody what they should or should not celebrate.”

Delorme said while the fruits of colonialism like the residential school system, Indian Act, and ’60s Scoop were created in the past, people of today have inherited the aftermath.

“We must accept the good and what we inherited,” he said.

He challenged people to read the Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, share them, and act on any of them that “click with you.”

“We’ve got some work to do,” he said, “and if we all just grab a little bit of it, this country would and will be the greatest in the world.”

SOURCE 

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Orange Shirt Day happens every year on September 30th.

With the recent spike in interest for Orange Shirt Day events the team is designing special programming for both primary grades and ages 13+.
Save the Evidence is a campaign to raise awareness and support for the restoration of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School, and to develop the building into an Interpreted Historic Site and Educational Resource

In order to lock in a spot and date for your class or corporation, visit: website.