This month I won’t be sharing aspects of my personal experiences and thoughts as I am adjusting to my new life in Canada, and instead I will take time to privately reflect on how I am fulfilling my duties for reconciliation as a white immigrant and educator.
I will leave you with 3 reading resources that you may find useful in your own journey of learning and unlearning:
1. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Reports [external link]
Includes, among others, The History of residential school system (Volume 1), The Inuit and Northern Experience (Volume 2), The Métis Experience (Volume 3), Missing Children and Unmarked Burials (Volume 4), The Legacy of the residential school system (Volume 5), and Reconciliation (Volume 6).
The webpage also links other modern and historical reports, as well as Aboriginal Healing Foundation Reports.
2. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action [pdf download]
The 94 Calls to Action. For single column, bigger font, see pages 230 - 248 in Reconciliation (Volume 6, 2015) mentioned above.
3. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [external link]
This is the universal framework for reconciliation that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to fully adopt and implement (see Call to Action 43, and other references in Calls to Action document).
To directly support survivors reach out and contribute to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.
In solidarity