Residential school survivors share their stories at Truth

Former residential school teacher opens up Sometimes, in this business, a story sticks with you long after it’s gone to air. In 2008, when Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into Indian Residential Schools (TRC) was first getting started, I did a remarkable interview while guest hosting The Current on CBC Radio. It’s not often we hear from former teachers of Indian residential schools, so I was naturally intrigued by my guest Florence Kaefer, who taught at just such a school in Norway House, Manitoba, in the 1950s. But something else made the interview truly memorable. Florence, on the line from Vancouver Island, was joined by one of her former students, Edward Gamblin, calling in from northern Manitoba.

Residential School Money: Has It Helped Survivors Heal? The Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) has just released The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement’s Common Experience Payment and Healing: A Qualitative Study Exploring Impacts on Recipients. (PDF of study available here.) The Common Experience Payment (CEP) is a component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and is intended to monetarily recognize and compensate the experiences of former Residential School students. The study — a follow-up to the 2007 AHF report, Lump Sum Compensation Payments Research Project — builds upon 281 interviews with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Residential School Survivors. (Full disclosure: my mother and my friend Rick Harp co-authored the Lump Sum report.)

Last residential school in Canada From 1861 until the year the last school closed, over 150,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their homes –- often forcibly by the RCMP -- and sent to residential schools, where they were prevented from speaking their own languages and practicing their cultures. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that 80,000 residential school survivors are living in Canada today. Around 90 per cent experienced severe emotional, physical, or sexual abuse while in these government-funded, church-run schools. From Sept. 16 – 22, Vancouver hosts Reconciliation Week, a series of inclusive events that includes the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's BC National Event, and Reconciliation Canada events such as the Walk for Reconciliation. Reconciliation Canada is a multi-faith, multi-cultural organization. Under the leadership of Chief Dr.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre The Jallianwala Bagh massacre, also known as the Amritsar massacre, was a seminal event in the British rule of India. On 13 April 1919, a crowd of non-violent protesters, along with Baishakhi pilgrims, had gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh garden in Amritsar, Punjab to protest the arrest of two leaders despite a curfew which had been recently declared.[1] On the orders of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, the army fired on the crowd for ten minutes, directing their bullets largely towards the few open gates through which people were trying to run out. The dead numbered between 370 and 1,000, or possibly more. This "brutality stunned the entire nation",[2] resulting in a "wrenching loss of faith" of the general public in the intentions of Britain.[3] The ineffective inquiry and the initial accolades for Dyer by the House of Lords fuelled widespread anger, leading to the Non-co-operation movement of 1920–22.[4]

For residential school survivors I live in fear of the dark because of the residential school. Sainty Morris was play-wrestling with his best friend when they got caught. The residential school priests forced the two boys to beat each other bloody. Another time, Morris helped a younger student hide a puppy. When they were caught — again— the priests made them drown the puppy in a sack. And no matter how minor the infraction, the priests locked Morris in a dark room without food or water for as long as 15 hours. The Wildly Depressing History of Canadian Residential Schools Photo from a residential school off of Onion Lake in Ontario. During the mid 1800’s Canada’s colonization was chugging along with the industrial age, and the thinkers of the day were turning their brainpower towards the pesky task of how to deal with the “Indian Problem.” In 1841, Herman Charles Merivale, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies (who doesn’t look like he would be a bad guy to smoke cigars and sip sherry with), established and executed a concoction of his four policies on the subject: Extermination, slavery, insulation and assimilation. All of these were wrapped tidily up in the Residential School system. Testifying in Fort Albany, a former female student at St. Anne’s put it like this:

What are residential schools What is a residential school? In the 19th century, the Canadian government believed it was responsible for educating and caring for aboriginal people in Canada. It thought their best chance for success was to learn English and adopt Christianity and Canadian customs. Ideally, they would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, and native traditions would diminish, or be completely abolished in a few generations. The Canadian government developed a policy called "aggressive assimilation" to be taught at church-run, government-funded industrial schools, later called residential schools. Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu (/ˌniːkɔːˈlaɪ tʃaʊˈʃɛskuː/[1] NEE-koh-LY chow-SHES-koo; Romanian: [nikoˈla.e t͡ʃe̯a.uˈʃesku]; 26 January 1918[2] – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader. He was also the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989. A member of the Romanian Communist youth movement, Ceaușescu rose up through the ranks of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's Socialist government and, upon the death of Gheorghiu-Dej in 1965, he succeeded to the leadership of Romania’s Communist Party as General Secretary. After a brief period of relatively moderate rule, Ceaușescu's regime became increasingly brutal and repressive. By some accounts, his rule was the most rigidly Stalinist in the Soviet bloc.[3] He maintained controls over speech and the media that were very strict even by Soviet-bloc standards, and internal dissent was not tolerated.

Reconciliation a monetary and emotional battle for residential school survivor Mavis Jeffries would do anything to get to Vancouver, but it won’t be easy. Coming to Vancouver means coming to terms with a lifetime of sadness for the residential school survivor. She’s been combing Facebook looking for a ride and learning to surf the net on a cellphone to try and find a way to get to here by Wednesday so she can walk with her people at the Truth and Reconciliation gathering, share her story and hear others. She’s even been selling bannock by the side of the highway in Gitsegukla, near Hazelton, to scrape together the money for a bus ticket. For Jeffries, who survives by hunting, fishing and picking blueberries, and who clothes her family on $5-a-bag clothing from a thrift store, a trip to Vancouver is an extravagence beyond her wildest dreams.

Happiness in Res. Schools J. FRASER FIELD While the horror of what occurred all to often needs to be brought out, such a one-sided and simplistic characterization constitutes a distortion of the truth and an injustice to the many, and there were many, who served the native people in good faith and with much love. Painting all residential schools as dysfunctional places of abuse and making them a collective scapegoat for the social problems which continue to plague the native people of Canada will not solve these problems, nor does it do justice to the many who worked tirelessly for the betterment of native children (Schools aimed to “kill the Indian in the child,” Nov. 22).