CONTENT WARNING - Genocide, colonial violence, violence against children
Last week, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir confirmed the discovery of a mass grave site with the remains of 215 children who were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
This is a devastating reminder of both religious and state-sanctioned violence that took place across residential schools by design to systematically separate and eliminate families, as well as the continued colonial violence and genocide that takes place in our cities, provinces, and nation – in our child welfare system, hospitals, schools, businesses and ‘justice’ system.
In recognition of this, the WTC team and our fantastic panellists Niki, Nic, Ellen and Tanvi have made the decision to postpone our event “Stories from the Intersections: Racialized Misogyny” to allow our Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members to center grieving, learning and healing.
The Women Transforming Cities board, staff and volunteers will be meeting at the time scheduled for this event. We will discuss how we can meaningfully take action at this moment as individuals, and as an organization following the lead of Indigenous peoples, the recommendations in the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry and the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action. We call on other organizations to also continue taking on this essential internal work, and to voice their support for First Nations communities calling for government accountability.
We hope you can take time this week to reflect, learn, listen and take action yourself. We would like to encourage everyone to attend the Native Women’s Association of Canada’s webinar tomorrow morning at 8 AM PST, NWAC Loses Confidence in Government, Walks Away From Toxic, Dysfunctional National Action Plan Process to Put Families, Not Politics, First, as they announce their National Action Plan. Our Wednesday newsletter will provide other resources for learning and taking action as well.
We will be back in touch with a new date for Stories for the Intersection in the coming week. Thank you for your understanding.
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