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kîwetân - Let’s Go Home

Schedule of Activities

10:00 send-off from BQ
    Elder George Brertton
    Speaker: Brenda Reynolds, Residential Schools Health Support Program

(snacks and washrooms at Auction Mart & St. Brides)

4:00 start arriving at Healing Lodge,
    Tent closer to entrance
    Welcoming with a Blanket
    Food will have been blessed so folks can eat when they arrive
    (Some volunteers to massage hurting feet)

Sit by the fire, visit each other,

Short program: speaker on Healing our Youth
Some Elders sharing Healing Stories

Drum Song

Transportation back to own vehicles or home

Please Call to Confirm

Karen 645-2009

National Day of Reconciliation Web Site

On May 26^th, 2005 and for four consecutive years, a commemorative walk is being held to honour all the people who have been affected by residential schools, either personally or inter-generationally.  First Nations people, along with other cultural groups, are promoting a National Day of Healing and Reconciliation for all cultures who have experienced social injustice and cultural conflict in Canada.  The First Nations people continue to fight for recognition and respect for their Indigenous knowledge and their cooperative and collective forms of self-governance. These have been eroded by the imposed structures of the Indian Act and its intent to assimilate Indigenous people through forced attendance at residential schools across Canada.  Among the 97 schools named by people seeking justice, Alberta had 24 of them. Indigenous people are now fully experiencing the effects of the residential school and the resulting intergenerational trauma that is expressed in increased social problems, unacceptable rates of addictions, violence, and early deaths.  We need to have the strength to examine our experiences, their roots, and challenge the behaviors that are keeping us from building a healthy community for our children.

On May 26^th we are walking from Blue Quills First Nations College (formerly Blue Quills Indian Residential School) through our traditional lands to the Saddle Lake Eagle Healing Lodge where we will celebrate and welcome each other home.  Everyone is welcome to walk these steps towards healing.

• We walk for all the children who never made it home.

• We walk for those who ran away from the school and got hauled back and punished by the staff and older students who were encouraged to join in.

• We walk for the many who suffered sexual and physical abuse.

• We walk for all those brothers and sisters who weren’t allowed to talk to each other for the years they were in residential school.

• We walk for those who were not celebrated when they returned home.

• We walk for those who were ashamed of their parents because they were Native and the school taught them that to be Native was a terrible thing.

• We walk for those who became ashamed and angry of their own Nativeness.

• We walk for those who made it home but were disconnected from the foundations and natural rhythms of their lives.

• We walk for those who lost their spirit and turned to addictions as a means of numbing themselves or turned to suicide because the pain was, and continues to be, too great to bear.

• We walk for those who try to find their personal power by oppressing others (all too often their spouses and children) or by being carriers of bits of information (called gossip) or by being dictatorial bosses in their work sites.

• We walk for those who deny their Native heritage so they can be accepted in a world that values sameness.  This includes all those people in non-Native communities who won’t acknowledge their own Native ancestry.

• We walk for those who have no hope for their own future or that of their communities.

• We walk to find the strength to confront those who think their future is in dealing drugs but they are killing our people.

• We walk for those who do work together because they carry the hope that together we can make a difference.

• We walk for those who carry the old knowledge that has helped us survive for thousands of years.

• We walk for those who are guided by a spiritual foundation whether it be Christian or traditional as long as it is forgiving and inclusive.

• We walk for those who have the courage to heal and who are supporting each other in healing whether through traditional or contemporary means.

• We walk for the children of today who carry the emotional burden of their parent’s woundedness.

• We walk for those who are yet to be born.

“Many generations have suffered from the legacy of residential schools even though they did not personally attend the schools. Various forms of abuse, low self worth, anger, depression, violence, addictions, unhealthy relationships, fear, shame, and compulsivity, lack of healthy parenting skills, body pain and panic attacks are passed on from one generation to the next.  The new generation, in response to their parents’ unresolved trauma, then develops the same or new defense/coping mechanisms and behaviors that, in most situations, are as unhealthy as the behaviors of those who experienced the original trauma. Breaking the cycle of abuse set in motion by residential schools is essential if Aboriginal communities are to become healthy places for children to be nurtured.

    …recognize, remember, resolve, reconnect…  Aboriginal Healing Foundation