Orange Shirt Day - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
- Dawson Women's Shelter Dawson City Canada (map)
Both the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day take place on September 30.
Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived residential schools and remembers those who did not. This day relates to the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwepemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, which was taken from her. It is now a symbol of the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations.
On September 30, we encourage all Canadians to wear orange to raise awareness of the very tragic legacy of residential schools, and to honour the thousands of Survivors.
From Canadian Heritage
Image description: Text 'National Day for Truth and Reconciliation' on an orange background with an illustration of figures sitting in a circle with a sweetgrass and feather border.
Art by Portia Chapman
Skills, tips, and creative conversations to have with our kids about creating consent culture.
“As long as us men and boys fail to respect indigenous women and girls, not because we have mothers, sisters or daughters but as human beings deserving of respect; then we share responsibility for our community’s pain.” - Ricky Mawunganidze
“These women, girls, two-spirited people were all once part of a community across this country. All these individuals were once part of a family, they were a loved one. They might have attended the same school, and they might have been a neighbour.” - Georgette McLeod
Living in Canada gives every person who is not Indigenous the responsibility of taking time to learn and unlearn.
“Two-Spirit is a contemporary English term to reflect gender diversity that Indigenous nations have always had. As Indigenous people, we’ve always had gender diversity and sexual diversity in our Nations before colonization existed on Turtle Island (North America). With the imposition of colonization, Christianity, residential schools and ‘the Sixties Scoop,’ a lot of those teachings of gender diversity have been lost and a lot of people are searching for their identity as Two-Spirit people and the roles and responsibilities that come with that.” - James Makokis
Massive mähsi cho to the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Heritage Department for creating and sharing Hän language around Sisters in Spirit.
Just did a big shop at Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre! Drop-in to the DWS Library to borrow any of our new library resources or pop by Dänojà Zho’s gift shop when it reopens to buy your own copy.
Kinship reminds me that I deserve good things and so do my friends, family and community. We deserve to live in a world where we don’t have to seek these relationships, rather they are the fabric of our societies.
Skills, tips, and creative conversations to have with our kids about creating consent culture.
Massive mähsi cho to the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Heritage Department for creating and sharing Hän language around Sisters in Spirit.
The report’s Calls to Justice focus on all areas of Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit folks’ lives: government, health, media, legal systems, policing, resource extraction, social services, transportation, education, and child welfare.
We’re focusing, today, on the Calls for All Canadians.
“Two-Spirit is a contemporary English term to reflect gender diversity that Indigenous nations have always had. As Indigenous people, we’ve always had gender diversity and sexual diversity in our Nations before colonization existed on Turtle Island (North America). With the imposition of colonization, Christianity, residential schools and ‘the Sixties Scoop,’ a lot of those teachings of gender diversity have been lost and a lot of people are searching for their identity as Two-Spirit people and the roles and responsibilities that come with that.” - James Makokis
DWS has some toys in storage that we’d much rather get into the hands of some awesome Dawson children.
Roundup of useful links curated by Dawson Women’s Shelter.