Orange Shirt Day remembers those forced into residential schools
POSTMEDIA NETWORK
Schools across Canada featured people wearing orange shirts to recognize residential schools.
The main message of Orange Shirt Day is “every child matters.”
This year was the first time Orange Shirt Day was held at English Catholic schools in Niagara and it will become an annual event.
Matthew Brady, a Grade 6 teacher at Alexander Kuska Catholic Elementary School in Welland, said by teaching students about residential schools youth can better understand Canada’s history.
Students also begin to learn what residential students must have felt when they were taken from their families.
Brady is also the school’s First Nation Métis Inuit representative. In this role he helps organize events and activities for students so they can learn about Canada’s First Nations.
For Brady, Orange Shirt Day is a great opportunity to discuss First Nation’s issues relating specifically to residential schools.
The reason for wearing an orange shirt is to remember the story of Phyllis Webstad. She attended the St. Joseph Mission residential school in British Columbia when she was a child. On her first day of school at the mission her new orange shirt was taken away from her.
Orange Shirt Day came from an event held at the school in 2013 that commemorated those who had attended residential schools. Sept. 30 has become annual Orange Shirt Day because it was at that time of year when children were taken from their homes to residential schools.
Emily Montoya, 11, said the day helped her learn and understand what students must have gone through.
“They had to suffer a lot and they wouldn’t be able to see their parents again for a very long time, or ever,” Montoya said.
Montoya felt heartbroken when she learned about the children who were taken away from their families. She said she could imagine the children probably felt hopeless and helpless.
“They were probably scared all the time.”
Montoya and her classmate Chase Burton, 11, said it was a bad idea to take children away from their families and force them to go to residential school.
For Burton, Orange Shirt Day is important because he feels sorry for what people did to the First Nations.
“I feel sorry for what we have done. If I were there, I would feel scared, alone, sad, mad and afraid. It would feel like a jail to me,” Burton said.
Burton said learning about residential schools will help make sure something like that never happens again.
“It doesn’t matter what culture you are, we are all humans,” Burton said.