Community celebrates documentary premiere

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An evening of feasting and celebration took place on the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation July 10th in celebration of the premiere of a community video documentary entitled Our Healing Journey.

About 200 residents and visitors came to feast and enjoy an evening program to unveil this unique and profound video about the intergenerational affects of residential schools on the lives of First Nations peoples. Ten residential school survivors from the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, in Muncey, Ont., share their experiences of the time spent in four of these schools- Mount Elgin Institute; Shingwauk Residential School; Mohawk Institute; and Fort Frances Residential School. Healers also contribute to the film.

The telling of the stories has helped these survivors let their children see that those experiences have become a part of each family's history and reveals how they have survived the years of being separated from their homes and families.

This video, funded by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and produced by Kem Murch Productions Inc., London, Ont., is dedicated to all the community's residential School survivors "who lived in an era of cruel hardships and who stood strong in restoring the Anishnawbe balance in their families and in our community. Also, to our unborn spirits whose special gifts will continue the legacy to build a strong Anishnawbe Nation."

Gina McGahey, Dorothy French, Mark French, and other Chippewas of the Thames community members and Elders helped to put together the proposal to the healing foundationin 1999. In the spring of 2000, there were community meetings to decide the direction of the video and what the content would be. A protocol was set up to help the survivors "be approached in a careful and caring way," explained Kem Murch. A video committee was struck to keep the project on track and to keep the community apprised of the progress.

"The clips that were selected for the video were approved by the survivors themselves" after visits from Gina McGahey and the committee, Murch added.

"It was very important to the community that this be a story filled with hope and revitalization of the culture, each person preserved something of themselves, some precious part of who they and their culture were, despite all the things that the schools tried to erase and they ended up being passed down to their children and grandchildren," Murch reflected.

She added another theme that kept coming back was the importance of grandmothers, "those original relationships were so strong between the survivors and their grandparents."

A main feature of the video were the observations and explanations offered by Malcolm (Mac) Saulis, a professor of social work at Carlton University who consults with the Chippewas of the Thames and was asked to take part in the video.

He explains, "my understanding is helped by people telling me their story, and so I learned, over the years, how to explain what's happening to the individual and to their family." He uses this skill as he is shown throughout the video explaining certain negative phenomenon learned in the residential school experience.

Another highlight of the video features the singing of the Deshkan Ziibi Engamojig Women Singers from the Chippewas of the Thames community and nearby London. They have been singing together for the past year to provide healing songs for the documentary.