Image Credit: Instagram/blue_gen_2020

By Adam Donnelly

RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS

Kamloops teacher helps students wear their (blue) hearts on their sleeves for Orange Shirt Day

Sep 30, 2020 | 4:36 PM

KAMLOOPS — Every Child Matters. It’s the official slogan of Orange Shirt Day, which began as a result of the Saint Joseph Mission Residential School Commemoration Project and Reunion in Williams Lake in 2013.

Former Residential School student Phyllis Webstad shared her story of attending the residential school — and from that story, Orange Shirt Day was born. The event is meant to recognize the harm residential schools had on Indigenous people, and help facilitate healing and understanding in our communities.

On Orange Shirt Day, CFJC Today found out how one local teacher has helped students put their own stamp Orange Shirt Day — with a heart of blue.

It could have happened on a day much like today. Starting in the late-1800s, First Nations children were snatched away from their families by the federal government in an effort to assimilate Indigenous people in colonial Canadian society.

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“September 30th is a significant day. It wasn’t just picked out of nowhere,” SD73 District Principal Mike Bowden explains. “It was the time of year when children were gathered up and taken away from their families to residential school.”

Tracy Ned’s mother was one of those children. That personal experience with the trauma and harm residential schools caused First Nations people have helped inform some choices she’s made in her professional life.

“I’m a Secwepemc language teacher. Because I’m a teacher, I have that opportunity to educate people on residential schools,” Ned tells CFJC Today. “[I can] share my experiences in different classrooms.”

This year, Ned is wearing a blue heart on her orange shirt. Along with her students at Valleyview Secondary, Ned is hoping to spread the idea of the Blue Heart Project to help show that residential schools still have an impact on the lives of Indigenous people, even decades after the schools closed.

“I realized working with some of the youth that they shared those same things as me,” Ned says. “Maybe you didn’t hear the words ‘I love you’ that often. Once I realized that they were just like me, I thought that they would have some input on the blue heart. So I mentioned it, and they really liked the idea.”

The idea has taken off. Ned and her students have used social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to help spread the message to other schools. Even Bowden was wearing a blue heart, in recognition of the trauma that has been passed down from residential school survivors.

“It’s quite important,” Bowden says. “Again, it’s that reconciliation around acknowledging that we are still dealing with that trauma.”

So on Orange Shirt Day, Ned wears a blue heart on her orange shirt, which was made by her daughter Larissa. She does so with the dream that her granddaughter Aubrey won’t have to live with that echo of pain Ned has dealt with her whole life.

“I don’t want her to carry around all the hardships,” Ned says, Aubrey by her side. “I want her to just be happy and know that she has a voice.”