FCC offering learning activities for Truth and Reconciliation Day

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As Canada gets set for Truth and Reconciliation Day on Sept. 30, Stratford’s Falstaff Family Centre will be doing its part to help tell the story of the region’s Indigenous people.

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We Were So Far Away, an exhibit from the Indigenous-led Legacy of Hope Foundation that tells the story of residential school survivors, will be on display in the centre’s Community Room from Monday, Sept. 22, to Sept. 26, as well as from Sept. 29 to Sept. 30, between 12 p.m and  6 p.m.

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During the exhibit, orange T-shirts, which commemorate the horrific experiences of residential school survivors, will be available for sale from Winona Sands of Howling Moon Aboriginal Arts, a member of Walpole Island First Nation. 

A micro-exhibit on loan from the Stratford-Perth Museum that displays more than 10,000 years of archaeological evidence and indicates long-term Indigenous settlement along Stratford’s Avon River, will also be showcased. Indigenous artifacts from the local museum will also be on display.

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A nine-minute film from Parks Canada, The Legacy of the Residential School System: An Event of National Historic Significance, will play continuously in the exhibition space.

The Falstaff Family Centre has also planned a full slate of events to mark Truth and Reconciliation Day on the day itself. Starting at 7:30 a.m. and a running until noon, Patsy Day, an Oneida First Nation elder and a member of the Turtle Clan, will host a sunrise ceremony and Indigenous teachings.

At 6 p.m., a solidarity walk around the river for the public will be led by the Falstaff Family Centre’s owner and director, Loreena McKennitt, starting at the centre’s teepee.

Finally at 7 p.m., the documentary film, Birth of a Family, from the National Film Board of Canada will be shown in the community room.

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The film highlights the reunification of four siblings — Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie, and Ben — who were amongst the 20,000 Indigenous Canadian children taken from their families between 1955 and 1985 to be either adopted into white families or live in foster care.

Knowledge carrier Christin Dennis Gzhiiquot, also known as Fast Moving Cloud, a residential school survivor from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, will then share a post-screening story.

Event organizers also inviting residents to join Lunch and Learns seminars that will be presented virtually at 1 p.m. from Sept. 22 to Sept. 26 by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Aimed at an adult audience, these seminars provide “an immersive experience to unlearn the myths of colonial history in Canada.”

“The Falstaff Family Centre is grateful for the opportunity to lean into the Calls to Action as set out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and we look forward to continuing this work with the many people and organizations in this community” McKennitt said.

“As reconciliation has evolved, albeit in small and slow degrees, we have also been privileged to experience rich opportunities to learn and deepen our insights into our collective humanity and a holistic world view as experienced from the Indigenous world view,” she added.

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