A group of students sat around patterned blankets, reading old letters and past speeches in an attempt to understand the history of the Canadian Indigenous peoples and how European colonization has influenced the decline of many traditional cultures.
The blanket exercise was one of the opening events for a month-long campaign aimed to bring First Nations issues and culture to the forefront of students’ lives.
Revitalizing Indigenous Strength and Education (RISE) 2016 is a project devised by the Aboriginal Student Centre (ASC) in collaboration with several other student awareness groups such as First Peoples Council, the School of Canadian Studies, Student Alliance for Mental Health, and many student volunteers.
In the beginning of the narrative, the students heard about the varying groups that lived throughout Canada and what traces of them remain known to us. Slowly but surely European intervention fractured these collectives and erased the voices of individuals.
The blankets represented Canada, and the comforting material under the shoe-less feet of the students evoked an emotional response when it was their turn to be cast off of their portion, as many people before them have been.
Drew Douglas attended the event and said he found it an enlightening way to learn about First Nations rights.
“It meant a lot to feel included in the exercise, the setup was engaging and didn’t leave people feeling like they were an outsider,” Douglas said.
Douglas said the facilitators described the different intentions of the initial settlers, enjoying friendly interactions with the Indigenous peoples when they discovered one another, and the disintegration of communication when more governance was introduced.
Arielle Edgecombe-Fontaine, who volunteered at the event, said she enjoyed the personal atmosphere.
“It highlighted what the group wanted to accomplish . . . reconciliation, awareness, and building alliances,” she said.
According to Ash Courchene, ASC co-ordinator, the systematic erasure of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit culture by the Canadian government is the touchstone of comprehending the surviving dialogues today.
Despite generations of hardship, Courchene said he believes these traditional social aspects have only lasted into the 21st century due to the shared values of family and community prevalent in Indigenous societies, and an effort to preserve the truth of what parents, friends, and children had to endure.
“I hope [RISE month] brings a humanizing factor back to Indigenous identities that otherwise might be viewed as irrelevant and lost, or always angry and protesting,” Courchene said.
A key feature of the month’s communicative strategy is group discussion. Last week the ASC hosted a panel on Indigenous mental health, substance abuse, and the state of First Nations in this day.
Courchene said while the overall goal of the month is to revitalize Indigenous affairs, it is also to spread awareness to fellow students about the history that surrounds them on unceded Algonquin land.
