Tracy Toulouse X Sacrd Thndr Ft The Resilience at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week

Phyllis Webstad, was a child when she had to attend the Indian Residential School. She remembers to this day clearly, how the Indian Residential School removed her clothing on her first day, including the orange shirt her grandmother gave her, which was never returned. The traumas faced by the children, still carry these heavy wounds and ripples to their families. This inspired Orange Shirt Day in Canada. 

More than 150,000 children were taken to the Indian Residential Schools, in the US they are called Indian Boarding Schools, where the children attended as young as 6 years old, most of the time missing their language, culture and family bonds which was removed from them. The Government of Canada stripped the "Indian" from the Child with harsh assimilation policies and colonization. Many children never returned home from these schools, launching communities to begin searching for their missing children and unmarked graves across Turtle Island. 

Visit the National Truth and Reconciliation to learn more about the history of Indian Residential Schools: https://nctr.ca/education/teaching-resources/residential-school-history/

The Orange Shirt Society is a non profit organization based out of Williams Lake, BC. The society formed in 2015 to create awareness of the intergenerational impacts of Indian Residential Schools while promoting the truth and concept of EVERY CHILD MATTERS. This team works all year around to spread awareness. 

Feel free to make a donation to this important organization: https://orangeshirtday.org/support/#publicspacehttps://orangeshirtday.org/support/#publicspace

The mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation was to inform all about what happened in Canada at the Indian Residential Schools. The testimonies of survivors who were children were documented through statements, and many began their healing initiatives. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) was birthed from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide a place of learning and dialogue while preserving the statements and records of the children. 

September 30th is now recognized as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to recognize, those students who went away to school and to the families of those who never made it home. In order for us to allow reconciliation, we must accept and understand the dark history of Canada's truth. It was our parents that went there, our relatives, including ourselves who attended the Day School.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission have 94 calls to action, please learn about them here: https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

UNDRIP affirms the right of Indigenous Peoples to create and manage their own affairs and is a tool to lay out the rights of the Indigenous Peoples around the world. These can include important instruments such as declarations, conventions and treaties that are intended to define and uphold Indigenous Human Rights in International Law. This also entails the protection and preserving Indigenous cultures and languages. To learn more, please visit the website to learn how this impacts you. 

Read the document here and save it to your files: https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf