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Volunteers hand out orange shirts to raise awareness for 215 children found at Kamloops Residential School

“What if there are unmarked burials that nobody knows about? Now that this came to light with the 215 children, I think more of the First Nations communities are going to be requesting searches on ex-Residential School properties.”

COCHRANE— In recognition of the 215 Indigenous children found in a mass grave near Kamloops, B.C., a group of volunteers handed out orange shirts to raise awareness about the terrible history of Residential Schools in Canada on Thursday (June 3).

Buffy Bearspaw, Laura Bearspaw, Lynn Bearspaw and John Sedo set up a table near the recently installed monument in downtown Cochrane dedicated to the 215 children found at a mass burial site at the Kamloops Residential School.

Every year, the Stoney Education Authority makes orange shirts for the schools in the area, and this year there were leftovers, Buffy explained.

The orange shirts have become a symbol representing unity with the survivors of the Residential School system.

The symbol became significant when Phyllis Webstad, a survivor of the Residential School system, shared the story of her first day of school at the St. Joseph Indian Residential School near Williams Lake, B.C.

Before her first day of class, Webstad’s grandmother bought her a brand-new orange shirt to wear.

When she arrived wearing the shirt, administrators of the school stripped her, took her clothing and her new orange shirt, which was never seen again.

Since 2013, Sept. 30 has been designated as Orange Shirt Day, in an effort to recognize the horrors First Nations people endured in the Residential School system and to express solidarity with the survivors of those facilities.

Buffy said she and the other volunteers avoided the Residential School system, but did attend Day Schools.

Day Schools were schools where First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended during the day, but still lived with their parents and remained in their communities.

Many reports of abuse in Day Schools similar to those of the Residential School system have surfaced in recent years.

“The three of us went through Day School too, and even in Day School we went through horrible things,” she said. “My mom, my grandma, they all went through residential, but unfortunately they’re not here to share their stories. I just wish we heard their stories to know about what they went through.”

Sedo said he was not aware of the monument that had been set up in downtown Cochrane, but was touched when he saw the public acknowledgement.

“It looks beautiful. It’s so great. For the community here to get together and put that up is— To me I feel really thankful that they’re acknowledging. It means a lot to us. It does. It means a lot to the kids too.”

There have been many public displays of acknowledgement, Sedo said, including some broadcast on national television.

On Wednesday (June 2) the National Hockey League’s bout between the Montreal Canadiens and the Winnipeg Jets was broadcast nationwide.

Before the game, during the live broadcast, a moment of silence was held for the 215 children.

Sedo said he was touched, knowing that Canadians across the country tuned in and saw the public acknowledgement of the tragedy.

“They saw what I saw. That was a moment of silence, and that was an acknowledgement,” he said. “That just brought tears to my eyes when I watched it. I’m not going to lie, I shed tears, but tears of joy. People are actually starting to see what’s really going on here because, for years and years and years, nobody knew about it. If you don’t know about it then you’re not going to care about it.”

Sedo said his goal for handing out the shirts was to spread awareness in the community about the Residential School system and the traumatic history that took place in those facilities.

“The more people that are aware of what had happened in the past, especially with the 215 children who were recently found, we’re building awareness for them and for all the reserves across the whole country as well,” he said.

Many of the issues Indigenous people face today are the result of the generational trauma First Nations people endured in the past and continue to endure today.

“A lot of our First Nations communities, we have issues. We have drugs and alcohol issues, addictions and so forth, and there’s a reason for that. One of them would be what we went through in the Residential Schools. What we went through in the Residential Schools, it left a burden on us, it crushed us. It turned us into people having addictions, giving us addictions, depression and suicide. With this happening if we can bring it up, unearth the wrongs and make it right … I think that we can eventually move forward. We’re dealing with our hurts. In order to get better, in order to be a stronger First Nations people, we need to deal with our hurts … Accept it, acknowledge it, get it out there in the open.”

Given the number of Residential Schools in the province and across the country, Sedo said, he expects to see more First Nations requesting searches for mass graves like the one found in Kamloops.

“Once that was brought to light, who’s to say that there are possibly more burials, unmarked burials across Alberta,” Sedo said. “What if there are unmarked burials that nobody knows about? Now that this came to light with the 215 children, I think more of the First Nations communities are going to be requesting searches on ex-Residential School properties.”

Awareness, Sedo said, is the first step in moving forward from the painful past that has been a burden to many First Nations communities in Canada.

“That’s what this is all about, to unearth a wrong to make it right,” he said. “That’s my perspective of what’s happening and why it’s happening. We want to unearth the wrongs of the past, undealt with issues, unearth them and deal with them accordingly so that we can move on; so that the First Nations peoples can move forward and not have this dragging them down.”

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