Personal security top of mind on college campuses

This year’s Sisters in Spirit vigil was extremely personal for organizers and participants at the small New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) campus in Moncton.

Earlier this year, the body of Loretta Saunders, 26, originally from Labrador and attending university in Halifax, was found in a median off Route 2 of the Trans-Canada Highway west of Moncton.

Saunders’ two roommates were charged in her death. She was three months pregnant at the time of her disappearance and was writing her thesis on missing and murdered Aboriginal women.

Saunders sister requested that vigils be held across the country in March.

“That atmosphere was very sad, but it was also very beautiful and it was very healing. But it raised awareness, which was huge,” said Patty Musgrave, Aboriginal advisor for NBCC Moncton.

“This (October) vigil had an extremely hopeful atmosphere and one of the things that makes it hopeful, the more people who attend these vigils and know what Sisters in Spirit is, the more awareness there is.”

Seventy-five people gathered on the Moncton campus on Oct. 3. This is the third year vigils have been held at all six NBCC campuses.†

The event took place the day before the nationally-scheduled Sisters in Spirit vigils. Musgrave says it was important that students be able to participate. For many of them, it is their first time away from home and their first time in an urban setting.

“They’re disconnected from their communities to begin with and then they’ve come to this urban centre where there are malls and bars and all kinds of extracurricular things,” said Musgrave. “For our girls it’s important for them to attend and be aware of the entire initiative because it impacts them, it impacts all of us.”

Of the 1,200 students on the Moncton campus, 35 are Aboriginal. NBCC is committed to its Indigenous students, said Musgrave, pointing out that every campus has an Aboriginal advisor, Aboriginal students are fully engaged, and there are supports in place for them.

“It’s not just lip service,” she said. “Our students are a priority.”

That priority was underscored when Hannah Qaunaq, of Nunavut, a sheet metal student, received the Loretta Saunders Memorial Bursary at the Moncton vigil. The bursary, to be presented to a female student, preferably Inuk, was established with funds raised during the March vigil, which was attended by a number of agencies.

The high turnout in Moncton, as well as the attendance of both women and men, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, is an indication of the growing awareness of the issue, said Musgrave.

Ann-Marie Recollet, who co-organized a similar vigil in Sudbury on Oct. 4 on behalf of the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre, says awareness is also centred around the federal government’s refusal to hold a national inquiry into the murdered and missing Aboriginal women and girls, as well as Saunders’ death and the discovery of 15-year-old Tina Fontaine’s body in the Red River, in Manitoba, in August.

The third annual Sudbury vigil had a larger turnout than previous years, with a similar mixture of participants as Moncton.

“There is a large (Indigenous) population here in Sudbury and the (issue) is growing to be known,” said Recollet.

The Sudbury vigil included women with hand drums as well as 50 photograph posters of women who have been murdered or gone missing. Those photographs are only a small number of the nearly 1,200 that a recent RCMP report identified.

“It was really touching for everybody to see. When we got together, everybody was really grieving for the loss of the women,” she said.

Among the posters was a sign that asked the haunting question that has hit social media this past year, “Am I Next?”

“It brought the awareness for the women. There were some women here who were really new to the city and they were really aware not to walk alone in areas in the park,” said Recollet.

The #AmINext campaign has Aboriginal women of all walks of life holding a sign asking the question. That question has now begun to be replaced by the statement “I’m not next.”

That’s a powerful change, says Musgrave.

“We are now so aware that we’re not going to be next,” she said. “We’re empowered. We are gaining knowledge every day on how to take care of ourselves and how to protect ourselves. We’re not going to allow that to happen to us.”

Photo caption: A vigil was held at New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) campus in Moncton Oct. 3 to help raise awareness of murdered and missing Aboriginal women across Canada.