CJSR is marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation across our programming on Wednesday, September 30.

We are committed to building awareness around the atrocities and addressing the multi-generational effects of the Canadian Indian residential school system on survivors, their families and communities.

BROADCAST
Remembering the Children: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
Wednesday, September 30 at 3-4:30pm MT

Courtesy of APTN, the 90-minute commemorative ceremony from Parliament Hill in Ottawa will honour Residential School Survivors, remembers the children who never came home, and supports ongoing reflection and reconciliation across Canada.

RESOURCE SHARING
Throughout the day, vignettes sharing ways to engage with truth and reconciliation in our everyday lives will be aired, covering:

• How Call 80 in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report resulted in the stat holiday
  September 30 is designed to recognize Survivors, their families, and communities impacted by residential schools. While also ensuring the atrocities are publicly remembered.

• How everywhere in Edmonton is Indigenous land
  Learn whose traditional land it is, who originally inhabited this land before they were kicked off by the federal government, visit Whose.Land.

• How the last Alberta-based Indian Residential School closed in 1988
  The St. Mary’s Indian Residential School on the Blood Reserve shut down on June 30, 1988. See the full list of all 25 residential school run in Alberta. 

• How children at residential schools were forced to speak English and punished if they spoke their native language
  300+ distinct Indigenous languages existed in North America before colonization. Visit the Canadian Language Museum’s Indigenous Language Learning Tools & Resources to learn more about the vastness of Indigenous languages.

• How to respectfully collaborate with Indigenous communities, nations and organizations 
  The University of Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies just launched an online, free course called Indigenous Engagement and Partnership Development. 

• How to support organizations in service of residential school survivors
  The impacts of residential schools continue today, consider giving a monetary donation to a organization, such as:
  • Indian Residential School Survivors Society – a B.C. based organization providing counselling and health and cultural services to survivors of residential schools, including National Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1.866.925.4419.
  • Orange Shirt Society – an non-profit working to raise awareness of intergenerational trauma caused by the residential schools and commemorate the experiences of survivors. 
  • First Nations Child & Family Caring Society – organization developing education initiatives, public policy campaigns and provides resources to support First Nations communities and ensure the well-being of youth and their families.