Back-to-school gifts make a big difference for Indigenous students

Amy Smoke was a single mom with three kids when she got the backpack that helped launch her on a new life.

The Indigenous woman, whose mother is Mohawk from the Six Nations reserve, had been through homelessness, drug addiction and jail. She made the decision to return to Conestoga College in 2015 to finish her diploma.

As a gesture of encouragement for that journey back to school, she received a pair of running shoes and a backpack stuffed with school supplies. There was even a backpack for her youngest child.

“It was wonderful,” Smoke recalled.

“I got an awesome pair of pink and black and orange Reeboks,” and the backpacks were stuffed with school supplies like lined paper, mini staplers, binders, and a reusable water bottle.

The gifts were from her Indigenous community, which gives the shoes and backpack to any Aboriginal student returning to school.

The person getting the gifts doesn’t have to prove that he or she is poor.

“It has nothing to do with finances,” said Donna Dubie, executive director of The Healing of the Seven Generations, a Kitchener agency that distributes the gifts to about 300 students a year.

“It has to do with us honouring that they’re going to school.”

A good education is key to living a fulfilling, rich life. But school is also a toxic subject for many Indigenous people.

For more than a century, Indigenous children were forced to live in residential schools where they were often starved, abused, and punished for speaking their own language. The last residential school closed in 1996, but the pain continues through the generations.

Meanwhile, schools on First Nations reserves continue to be underfunded by as much as 30 per cent less than what schools for non-Indigenous children receive.

Smoke was born in Kitchener. Her mother married a non-Indigenous man and she grew up “out of the culture.”

She led a troubled life, but eventually she was able to re-connect with her culture. The drumming and singing, and the smudging ceremonies, helped her to heal.

She earned that college diploma and went on to get two degrees at University of Waterloo. Next year, she will start work on a master’s degree in social work, with a specialty in Aboriginal issues.

We’ve heard a lot about the need for reconciliation with the Indigenous people of this country. The problems seem too huge for an ordinary person. But there is something you can do. The backpack program is not getting the same support from corporations as it once did.

If the program is to continue, it will be through individual support of Indigenous people and their allies.

Many of us could sponsor a backpack for $50. You can donate at this link www.youcaring.com/walkinghandinhand or you can donate through Anishnabeg Outreach, a partner agency in downtown Kitchener, if you wish to receive a tax receipt.

You may also drop off backpack supplies until August 18 at the Mennonite Central Committee, which is a partner in this project, at its office at 50 Kent Ave., Kitchener.

There is also a fundraising barbecue at the Zehrs store at Conestoga Mall, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.