National Day of Healing and Reconciliation ceremonies across Canada recognizing residential schools survivors
From the "About NDHR" (National Day of Healing and Reconciliation) web site
Mission Statement
National Day of Healing and Reconciliation is a movement of people committed to moving forward collectively within our families, communities, and across Canada for the purposes of healing and reconciliation.
Objectives:
- To celebrate a positive, collective healing and reconciliation movement within our families, communities, churches and government on May 26th of each year.
- To educate ourselves and other Canadians about our collective history of government policies which impacted Aboriginal communities and other ethnic groups.
- To develop commemoration sites and to encourage communities to join in the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation.
NDHR Logo Explanation
The rainbow above the ground symbolizes we are healing to recognize we have a responsibility for those children who are not yet born. The rainbow under the ground symbolizes the children who have gone to the other side. The four people symbolizes the four races, but in spirit, because when we do see past the colour we are all spirits holding hands to move forward in healing and reconciliation.
We walk on green grass to symbolize growth. The water is to nurture the growth and to symbolize that Mother Earth becomes richer with watering as we too become healthier when we feel accepted. The sun symbolizes the vision we all share of healing and reconciliation through education and building understanding.
++++++++++
Day of healing for residential school victims
By: Meghan Hurley - May 25
The National Day of Healing and Reconciliation to remember victims of residential schools was marked Sunday with a ceremony at the Forks.
"It's really about any group of people who have had some sort of government imposed or political imposed wrongdoing and they have the need to reconcile from that sort of injustice," said Kimberley Puhach, chairwoman for the event for Winnipeg. "It's not just for residential school survivors, but the entire culture."
The Lance Runners ran into The Forks Sunday morning for the opening ceremonies of the National Day of Healing and Reconciliation. (Sarah Kearney / Winnipeg Free Press )
Winnipeg Blue Bomber Troy Westwood sang his own version of O Canada on Sunday, slamming the country's treatment of aboriginals.
"Oh Canada, hang your head in shame," Westwood sang during Sunday's ceremony. "Residential school, church and government to blame. You share the responsibility, committed an atrocity."
The day of healing began at 5:30 a.m. Despite the rain, a fire was lit and sacred pipes were smoked for the occasion.
Around 10:30 a.m. the aboriginal Lance Runners were escorted by police into The Forks after running from Thompson to Winnipeg over the course of five days.
The group ran to honour the residential school survivors and to highlight the need for social programs for First Nations youths. They entered The Fork's Oodena Circle on Sunday morning to music performed by a group of women.
"This is a positive thing we are doing with our youth in light of social problems out there," said Percy Ballantyne, who led the group of youths in the run. "We had to have someone work with them at a grassroots level so that's why we took up this movement."
The Lance Runners are a group of 60 Cree youth from across the province who ran to Ottawa in 2005 to ask politicians to set aside May 26 as a day for healing.
A Wiping of the Tears ceremony was held later in the day to remember the Cree children who were killed in a plane crash in 1972 while they were on their way home to Oxford House from a residential school.
"One family lost two family members in that plane crash and it's a tragedy that some people are just learning about," Puhach said. "It was our way of honouring those eight children and their families and raise awareness of the tragedy not only of being taken away to go to school but the loss of life returning home."