Esther Calder, centre, and other residential school survivors said they found comfort in recognition at National Day for Truth and Reconciliation events across Vancouver. (Shawn Foss/CBC)
To read more of Michelle Morton's article, please click here.
Hope and grief intermingled as residential school survivors, Indigenous communities and non-Indigenous people gathered across Vancouver to commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Saturday.
The day is meant to recognize and honour residential school survivors and those who didn't make it home, as well as acknowledge the inter-generational damage caused by Canada's residential school system and celebrate Indigenous cultures.
Multiple Indigenous-led events in Vancouver brought hundreds of survivors, elders, children and members of the public together in song, dance, prayer and learning.
In East Vancouver, hundreds marched from Strathcona Community Centre to Grandview park in the morning as part of the Orange Shirt Walk.
"It's a tough day, because if you know an Indigenous person, their parent or their grandparent went to residential school, so it's important that we create a safe space," said Jerilynn Snuxyaltwa Webster, a Nuxalk and Onondaga spoken word artist also known as JB the First Lady.
"We're here, coming together to heal, to uplift each other and share that medicine through songs, dances and ceremony, and reclaiming who we are and what colonization and residential schools took from our elders, which was their songs, dances, language and land."
Comments (0)