Students Learn How the Journey of Truth and Reconciliation Continues Beyond Orange Shirt Day 

Submitted by Mary Ann Lyons, Indigenous Student Advisor 

In a two-part collaboration, I worked with Community and Justice Services (CJS) students to explore Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being while learning about specific events that occurred in the history of Indigenous Peoples and the impacts of those events today.   

CJS students and their professor Derek Davies explored the Truth and Reconciliation Report and the Calls to Action while reflecting on what they can do to be part of the Calls to Action. Lastly, the CJS students spent some time with me in the tipi, continuing the conversations and learning about the significance of the tipi to Indigenous Peoples.  

The students reflected upon what wellness means to them from an Indigenous perspective using Medicine Wheel teachings and then created their own Wellness Wheel in preparation for placement and eventually for work in the Community and Justice Services field. Following the teachings, one of the Indigenous students in the class facilitated a smudging ceremony for his classmates.  
 
Karen Ducharme’s Community Integration through Cooperative Education (CICE) class also visited the tipi where they too learned about personal wellness using the Medicine Wheel model. Students reflected on the meaning of spiritual, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness and the need for balance among the four components. Some shared their personal strategies and challenges. The group then walked around the exterior of the tipi and received teachings about its structure, the Anishinaabe Creation Story that is represented in the artwork, and the Seven Grandfather Teachings. Finally, the class gathered in the Indigenous Centre where each student made their own Medicine Wheel.  

On Friday Oct. 6, over 80 Early Childhood Education (ECE) students in Bonnie Dawson’s class received teachings about the Sisters in Spirit movement and the Faceless Dolls project, and how they are linked to the residential schools and Orange Shirt Day. Each student then created their own unique doll that demonstrated their personal response to the teachings. Many students from countries other than Canada shared stories about the Indigenous people of their homeland and incorporated these into the artistry of their doll. The dolls are on display in the ECE classroom where they will undoubtedly inspire further conversation and storytelling.