Every Child Matters

This photo was created by Wunnumin Lake Community Member Roy Neshinapaise

Good Morning LLBMS Families!

Today, Wednesday, September 30th 2020, is Orange Shirt Day. You might be wondering what Orange Shirt Day is so let us explain it!

What is Orange Shirt Day?

Orange Shirt Day an event, created in 2013, designed to educate people and promote awareness in Canada about the Indian residential school system and the impact it has had on Indigenous communities for over a century—an impact recognized as a cultural genocide, and an impact that continues today.

It is a day where we recognize the harm that residential schools inflicted on Indigenous communities and honour those impacted. We also join together in the spirit of reconciliation and commit to ensuring that Indigenous children matter.

Orange Shirt Day began in Williams Lake in 2013 and has since spread to schools across B.C. and Canada.

Why Orange?

The “orange shirt” in Orange Shirt Day refers to the new shirt that Phyllis Webstad was given to her by her grandmother for her first day of school at St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in British Columbia. When Phyllis got to school, they took away her clothes, including her new shirt. It was never returned. To Phyllis, the colour orange has always reminded her of her experiences at residential school and, as she has said, “how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.”

https://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc2/the-feed/what-is-orange-shirt-day