I saw this posted on FB, but call your MP for one is important. I'm currently also taking that online course.
Copy/pasted from FB, not my words:
For days now, I have been asking myself, "How do I voice my outrage, my dismay and my sorrow about the discovery that supports the stories told for decades by residential school survivors - there are bodies of Indigenous children laying in unmarked graves in the gardens and orchards of Canada’s residential schools?” But more importantly, I have been asking myself, "What can I 'do'?" and "As a non-Indigenous person, how can I be helpful and how do I push for some kind of change?" Yes, I can send thoughts and prayers and reach out to the few residential school survivors I know personally… and I will and it’s important to do so. Yes, I can place an old pair of children's shoes on the local church steps in protest or hang an orange t-shirt on my front porch and leave the light on at night…and I will and it’s important to do so. But it’s also important to ask ourselves: “Are these gestures just posturing?”, “Will we just put an old teddy bear by the front door for a few weeks, think we've contributed and done our part and then go about our lives as usual?”, “Do these gestures really change anything for survivors?” and “Do they change anything for their children and grandchildren who are left to deal with the trauma?” They don’t. It's simply not enough for us non indigenous people to turn our social media profile pics orange. It's simply not enough to leave our lights on in memory. It's simply not enough to just feel uncomfortable for a little while. There are things we non-Indigenous people can do beyond small symbolic gestures to influence change, real change. If you, too, feel heartbroken over this, join me by doing some of the following. We owe it to ourselves and our children to improve our relationship with Indigenous people on both a societal and a personal level. We owe it to those indigenous people who survived and those kids who didn’t.
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Write, call, or email your MP and demand that the federal government fund all five Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls To Action number 72-76. These are the Calls To Action that ensure Canada works with Indigenous communities to locate their missing loved ones and the unmarked burial places in a culturally informed way.
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Sign the petition demanding a National Day of Mourning for the Lost Children of Residential School. Go here to do that: https://www.change.org/p/justin-trudeau-call-for-a-national-day-of-mourning-for-the-lost-children-of-residential-school
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Put your money where your heart is. Support the organizations that make a difference to survivors and their relations. I have donated some money to each of the three organizations listed below. If you can afford to donate some too, any amount, I urge you to do so.
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Lastly, and definitely most important, let’s get educated and teach our children the truth. For years I have taught my son the true history of Britain, France and Canada’s failed relationship with Indigenous people. It's not the history I learned in Grade 8 Social Studies. The truth is the purpose of all government policies was and is to eradicate the “Problem of the Indian”. So to the best of my ability as a Settler, I tell my son what really happened and continues to happen to Indigenous people. I tell him about the broken promises, the military massacres, reserves and the Pass system, unfulfilled treaties, the 60’s Scoop, diseased blankets, eugenics, and the forced disenfranchisement and assimilation laid out in the Indian Act.
So if you too want to learn the truth and teach your kids, where to start? Well, there are books and films and courses. See details of these below.
If you read this far, thanks, let's learn to be kind to each other. JOHN
National Organizations to Donate To
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Witness Blanket is a large-scale traveling art installation inspired by a woven blanket, made out of hundreds of items reclaimed from Residential Schools, churches, government buildings and traditional and cultural structures including Friendship Centres, band offices, treatment centres and universities, from across Canada. The Witness Blanket stands as a national monument to recognise the atrocities of the Indian Residential School era, honour the children, and symbolise ongoing reconciliation. You can donate by going here: http://witnessblanket.ca
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The Legacy of Hope Foundation (LHF) is a national, Indigenous-led, charitable organization that has been working to promote healing and Reconciliation in Canada for more than 19 years. The LHF’s goal is to educate and raise awareness about the history and existing intergenerational impacts of the Residential School System (RSS) and subsequent Sixties Scoop (SS) on Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) Survivors, their descendants, and their communities to promote healing and Reconciliation. You can donate here: https://legacyofhope.ca
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The Indian Residential School Survivors Society provides counselling as well as health and cultural support. They have an easy to use donation button. Go here for their website: https://www.irsss.ca/
FREE University of Alberta - Indigenous Canada Course
University of Alberta Native Studies Department offers a FREE online course titled Indigenous Canada. It is a 12-lesson Massive Open Online Course that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. Go to https://www.coursera.org/learn/indigenous-canada to sign up for this free online course.
Books to read. This is only a tiny list of what is available.
Up Ghost River – Edmund Metatawabin
A powerful, raw and eloquent memoir about the abuse former First Nations chief Edmund Metatawabin endured in residential school in the 1960s, the resulting trauma, and the spirit he rediscovered within himself and his community through traditional spirituality and knowledge.
They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada, Paulette Regan
A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada, E. Brian Titley
Truth and Indignation: Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools, Ronald Niezen
Reconciling Canada: Critical Perspectives on the Culture of Redress, Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham
Residential Schools, With the Words and Images of Survivors, Larry Loyie, Wayne K. Spear and Constance Brissenden.