09/30/2021
September 30, 2021 will be the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation
WEAR ORANGE
The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day are both on September 30.
Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived Indian Residential Schools and remembers those who did not. This day relates to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was taken from her. It is now a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.
There have been over 6509 remains found at 21 out of 139 residential school sites to date.
There were over 150,000 children forcibly taken from their familys and stripped of everything that made them who they were. Including their lives for many of them. This was done by the government of Canada, and the Catholic Church.
If your 5 year old child was taken from you forcibly. To go to a "school" you knew was horrid. But you couldnt do anything about it. And then to have them not come home. With no answer to what happend to them... how would that make you feel. How would that effect you, and your family.
Then to be asking for help but no one to listen for decades...
People are finally starting to listen. But its too late for those children and familys. They're destroyed.
But today, we can stop and educate ourselves on whats happend. And hold the parties responsible for whats happend. Find the answers to the horrors that were talked about for decades. And hopefully help those still alive to heal. A little. Because for the ones who lived through that. Theres no way to heal and forget and move on. But as a culture we can move forward productively. Ensuring things like this never happen again.