McKitrick Community School students take part in an Orange Shirt Day Walk in North Battleford on Monday. (Submitted photo/Amanda Risling)

By Angela Brown

Remembering Residential School victims

Battlefords recognizes Orange Shirt Day with walk, ceremony

Sep 30, 2019 | 3:34 PM

Many people in the Battlefords community are donning orange this week in honour of Orange Shirt Day which officially takes place Monday.

Area schools are taking part in a number of activities. There are also plans for a ceremony at the site of the former Battleford Industrial School on Thursday.

Orange Shirt Day was first established to recognize the story of an Indigenous girl who had her special orange shirt taken away from her in 1973 when she first attended residential school in B.C. The orange shirt became a symbol of the residential school system and its abuses, which robbed Indigenous people of their culture and language.

A number of schools participated in various events to honour Orange Shirt Day on Monday.

McKitrick Community School students learned of the importance of Orange Shirt Day as part of their studies.

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Students also took part in a walk, and created orange and white beaded bracelets, with an R letter on one of the beads to symbolize reconciliation, or remembering residential schools.

They each kept one bracelet and handed out another to people and businesses in downtown North Battleford Monday morning.

“Many of our students have relatives that went through residential schools so [it is also] to honour their stories,” Principal Amanda Risling said.

Students at McKitrick Community School created orange and white bracelets to give to the community to remember Orange Shirt Day. (Submitted photo/Amanda Risling)

On Thursday the community is invited to gather at the site of the former Battleford Industrial School at 10 a.m. where guest speakers will give a presentation about Orange Shirt Day. From there, participants will walk to the nearby cemetery where many residential school children were buried in a mass grave.

Sunchild Law and Battle River Treaty 6 Health Centre have partnered on this project. The event will follow with a lunch at Sakewew High School in North Battleford at 12 p.m.

Benedict Feist who will participate in the event at the former Battleford Industrial School is a member of a group of concerned citizens helping to preserve the Battleford Industrial School Cemetery, which has received municipal heritage property status. The group is currently waiting for the site to obtain provincial historical designation.

Feist said many students will attend the presentation and learn more about the significance of Orange Shirt Day and the impact of the residential school system.

“I hope people in the community get out to different events and read some of the articles online about residential schools in the area,” Feist said. “It’s an issue that obviously impacts a lot of people in our community today through the intergenerational effects of residential schools. It is a good thing to understand that, and understand the reason for this day, particularly when we have the population of Indigenous people in and around the Battlefords that we have,” Feist said.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow