Message to our members concerning the mass grave discovery of 215 Indigenous children murdered and buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School on the unceded land of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.
The death of these children and the mass graves were never documented by the school’s administrators. Listen to survivors. Community survivors from the Residential School system have said for years that many children went to the school and never returned.
As students, we stay alert to how schools as institutions have been sites of trauma, not education. As students united we stay alert to how this still happens.
Equity in education is not achieved until such inequities are named and redressed. We affirm our solidarity with the Indigenous communities that have called for an Orange Shirt Day today Monday, May 31 and onwards. Orange Shirt Day exists to educate and promote awareness about the aftermath and continued harm that the residential school system causes to Indigenous communities.
We echo and amplify the calls from leaders of the Assembly of First Nations and other groups who call on the Canadian government to examine for more mass gravesites.
We echo and amplify the calls to name this for the genocide that it is.
We urge and demand GBC to make known and make available accessible options for Indigenous students who need academic accommodation due to community mourning and grieving.
We urge and demand GBC to take up Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission toward fostering an educational system at GBC that redresses the lasting impact of the genocide against Indigenous people and the horrific legacy of residential schools. GBC to take action against inequities impacting Indigenous student learners.
We grieve and hold compassion. We join “Every Child Matters” to rally hope against injustice.
We grieve and hold compassion. We encourage each other as student learners and leaders to take accountability in our continued learning.
We feel, we mourn, and we keep on in the fight to end anti-Indigenous and colonial violence.
SUPPORTS
The National Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former residential school students. You can access emotional and crisis referral services 24/7 by calling the national crisis line at 1-866-925-4419.
Your Student Association is available, and here to support students through shared struggle, in the continued fight for education for all.
For questions, and on behalf of the Student Association, George Brown College.
Signed,
Sri Krishna Rajan
Director of Education & Equity
direducationequity@sagbc.ca
Urvish M. Patel
Director of Communications & Internal
dircommunicationsinternal@sagbc.ca