<\/p>\n
Over 200 students from Huntsville Public School (HPS) marched the streets of Huntsville on Friday, September 28 to show their support for Orange Shirt Day<\/a><\/span> and tell their community that the time has come for reconciliation.<\/p>\n Led by Kristy Brophy\u2019s grade 5\/6 class, HPS students sported orange shirts and proudly carried hand-made signs through the pouring rain that contained messages like ‘Every Child Matters’ and ‘We’re All The Same’ and ‘Honour The Children’.<\/p>\n “I marched to honour and show Huntsville that we care about the Indigenous people who went through residential schools,” said grade 6 student Tessa Ferguson.<\/p>\n Since 2013, September 30 as been recognized as Orange Shirt Day across Canada. The day got its name from Phyllis Webstad, an Indigenous woman from BC who was taken to a residential school in her early childhood. Webstad wore a new orange shirt that her grandmother had given her but it was stripped from her as soon as she entered the school.<\/p>\n According to Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), seven generations of children went through residential schools and were told that their lives were not as important as the lives of non-aboriginal children. They were also told that their culture, languages and practices were unimportant and that their ancestors were uncivilized.<\/p>\n “It was the educational system that has contributed to this problem in this country and it’s the educational system we believe is going to help us to get away from this. We need to look at the way that we educate children, we need to look at the way that we educate ourselves, we need to look at what it is our textbooks say about aboriginal people, we need to look at what it is that aboriginal people themselves are allowed to say within the educational system about their own histories,” said Sinclair in a TRC video<\/a><\/span> titled “What is Reconciliation.”<\/p>\n According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, which was released in December 2015, more than 150,000 Indigenous children went through Canada’s residential schools. The report notes that the TRC was able to confirm 3,201 student deaths in residential schools and that “it is probable that not all residential school deaths have been recorded.”<\/p>\n “We need to educate our kids on the importance of reconciliation,” said Brophy. “We need to show them that their voices matter and to always speak up for what they believe in.”<\/p>\n\n\t\t