Learn the Truth about Indian Residential Schools at Info Session

By Peggy Revell
Medicine Hat News
July 5, 2013

http://medicinehatnews.com/2013/07/news/local-news/learn-the-truth-about-indian-residential-schools-at-info-session/

The public is invited out to an information session concerning Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian residential schools next Tuesday.

Organized by the Blood Tribe Department of Health alongside the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the information session is taking place this July 9 at St. John’s Presbyterian Church from 6- 8 p.m.

The session is to provide information on what TRC statement gatherings are, explained Whitney Ogle with Miywasin Centre in Medicine Hat, which is partnering to help put the event on.

“What they look like, the changes that have been made for Indian residential schools’ survivors and their families.”

“It’s open to the public just to create an awareness, and have people come out to see if there’s any connection to them, whether it’s through their counselling or their programs or supports that they offer,” she said, encouraging both aboriginals and non-aboriginals to attend.

The information session is also a step to the statement gatherings that are happening across Canada, including setting something up in Medicine Hat for the surrounding communities.

Among many things, the TRC’s mandate is to learn and document the truth about Indian residential schools in Canada’s history, and share it with the public.

Residential schools date back to the 1870s, with more than 130 located across the country — although none in Medicine Hat. The last school closed in 1996. More than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were placed in these government-funded and church-run schools, often against their parents’ will. Many were also forbidden to speak their language and practise their own culture. There is an estimated 80,000 former students living today.