Ecumenical events educate on residential school

Member churches are collaborating with KAIROS, a social justice ecumenical organization which includes representation from the churches that signed the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, to prepare the public for five upcoming hearings in Alberta by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission over the next few months.

These hearings along with church and KAIROS-sponsored events are the lead up to the final national event to be hosted by the TRC in Edmonton at the end of March 2014.

“At the TRC, we have come to rely upon the churches and their organizations to assist in getting the message out to the non-Aboriginal population about a. the history of residential schools and b. the importance of reconciliation and some of the things that need to be done. And also to allow us to create an atmosphere that will encourage public involvement in our event,” said TRC Chair Justice Murray Sinclair.

Dianne Ollerenshaw, a Presbyterian minister who serves as regional director for the Synod of Alberta and the Northwest, worked with KAIROS-Calgary recently on a TRC preparation and right relations event held east of Calgary, at Indus, in early June.
“It’s bringing people together from diverse communities (to) examine the legacy of the Indian residential schools and … (supporting) the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,” said Ollerenshaw. “It’s to help us share our understanding.”

The two-day event, sponsored by the Presbyterian and United Churches, as well as individual churches, provided five sponsorships to each of the five First Nations in southern Alberta, as well as five sponsorships to Aboriginal people in Calgary and five sponsorships to non-Aboriginal people. Fourteen Indian residential schools operated in the southern part of the province.

“The goal is to bring Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together. And some of the Aboriginal people will have an experience of the Indian residential school so they will be sharing what they know … and all of us ….will have some context. By being together we hear the different experiences and begin understanding the shared history,” said Ollerenshaw.

While more and more is coming out about the treatment of students at Indian residential schools and the 100 years of horrifying history, non-Aboriginals still don’t know enough, she says.

The event in June is in preparation for the July 30-31TRC hearing which will take place in Calgary “so when it’s in town, people will have a better understanding of what’s going on,” said Ollerenshaw.

“Organizations (like KAIROS) allow us to create an atmosphere that will encourage public involvement in our event,” said Sinclair.
Prior to the June workshop, KAIROS hosted a blanket exercise in Lethbridge.

The blanket exercise is a hands-on educational demonstration of the cultural and territorial losses Aboriginal people experienced when the settlers came, says Julie Graham, spokesperson with KAIROS, out of Toronto.

“When you’re on the blanket, you’re in the shoes of Indigenous people… prior to contact. Then the European arrives,” she said.
The narrator goes through the steps that were taken to strip Indigenous people of their lands, their cultures and their languages.  This is demonstrated by rolling up the blanket.
“So you’re moving from the reality of Turtle Island being all Indigenous lands to this day, but what the rolling up of the blankets represents is the implementation of the treaty system and … the act of oppression of inherent rights and cultures,” said Graham.

Exercises like this and TRC hearings are an opportunity for non-Indigenous peoples to understand a history that was deliberately not taught, she says.

“You can’t talk about reconciliation unless you’ve heard the truth first. And this is about hearing the truth no matter how painful it might be to hear it and then having heard the truth… it’s very important that we then consider what all of our responsibilities are around taking steps to reconciliation and we don’t use that word lightly. It’s not about papering over the past.  It’s about the hard decisions we need to take together as a society to move further down the road into a place of reconciliation because we’re not there yet,” said Graham.

Other KAIROS-sponsored events taking place in Alberta include Slave Lake (June 18-19), High Level (July 3-4) and Hobbema (July 24-25).