Students gathered to commemorate the Indigenous survivors of residential schools, and also pay respects to those who did not make it home on Sept. 30 in the Carleton University quad. The event invited students to join in on a flash mob round dance. Betwen 20 and 30 students participated.
“We are creating a safe communication zone amongst Indigenous people, and we just want to ensure that respectful and reciprocal communication is taking place . . . there’s so many other events that happen too,” said Laura Gagnon, one of the event’s co-ordinators.
The event was to support Orange Shirt Day, which was started by Phyllis Webstad, an Indigenous woman, in 2013 when she recounted her experience as a six-year-old child being stripped of her new orange shirt in a British Columbia residential school.
The day was created by Webstad to target the racism children experienced within residential schools and that the Indigenous population still suffers from, according to the Orange Shirt Day website.
Frankie Lafrance, a third-year social work student who attended the round dance said the event was important.
“For me it is coming together as one in an alliance, and together we are thinking and acknowledging those people that are no longer with us who went through residential schools and just keeping them in mind today,” she said.
The Mawandoseg Centre on campus gave out orange patches to be pinned to clothing for people who weren’t already wearing orange. Almost all of the attendees placed them on their jackets and continued to wear them after the event.
Beginning a little after 12 p.m., coordinators Ashley Courchene, Gagnon, and Marissa Mills spoke a few words explaining the importance of Orange Shirt Day and educated attendees on residential schools based on experiences of family members. This was followed by a moment of silence for survivors and victims.
The group then began to take part in a round dance. They also invited students walking by to join in.
Sheila Grantham, a staff member within the Carleton Indigenous Policy and Administration department, said the event was a welcomed commemoration.
“For me I grew up with round dances so it is more like bringing home to campus, so that’s what I like about it,” she said.
The event included performances by local Indigenous drummer Brock Lewi who performed the Men’s Healing song, as well as Gagnon and Mills who played the Strong Women’s song, which was created for Indigenous women in the Kingston penitentiary as a song of power.
“That song is really meaningful to me because as a woman, it sings for the obstacles that Indigenous women face,” Gagnon said. “We as Indigenous people have one of the highest incarceration rates . . . It comes from Barbara Hooper who gifted that song.”
According to Courchene, the centre holds several other events throughout the year where the Carleton community is invited to take part in. He added the student body is welcome and encouraged to learn more through attending.
Courchene said reactions to the event were mixed.
“I would say one third [was] respectful and one third is not, those are the people who do not come and they complain about us taking up space and then about a third is indifferent or don’t know,” Courchene said. “We try to be inviting as much as possible.”
