Two local organizations teamed up to address lingering negative stereotypes about the experiences of First Nations people in Canada and closer to home.
The Fort Frances Senior Centre held an Anishinaabe cultural awareness seminar in conjunction with the United Native Friendship Centre last Wednesday.
As a part of the seminar, UNFC executive director Sheila McMahon and a handful of others with experience in the residential school system spoke to the assembled crowd.
Cindy Noble of the Fort Frances Senior Centre said that one of the reasons the seminar was held was because of an incident at the centre earlier this year.
“In the spring, somebody put something inappropriate up on the bulletin board, and it offended somebody that was coming here, and we just thought, ‘That’s wrong,'” Noble explained.
“I called Sheila the day after I realized it was on the board, and I told her, ‘This shouldn’t have happened, and I apologize,’ because I said I should have caught it earlier. I feel terrible about it, because we want to include everybody here.
“This is for all seniors, and not just a few.”
McMahon said there’s challenge in combating misinformation in the digital age, when social media seems to spread and reinforce negative stereotypes, which is one of the reasons the UNFC helped to put on the event.
“I think there’s so much posted on social media, different things about when you look at residential schools and the perception and we just wanted to get a positive message out to the community,” she said.
“We see it as a dark history, but at the same time, on social media people say, ‘Well, why can’t you forget, why can’t you move on?’
“But it’s not about forgetting or moving on. It happened, let’s accept it and work together and move on. And that’s what today was about, trying to get out in the community and provide those positive messages.”
McMahon was joined in speaking by Dick Bird, Buddy Loyie and Glen Jourdain, each of whom has experienced the residential school system.
They spoke to the crowd about their realities in the system, as well as the damage it inflicted on other parts of their lives, and the lives of their friends and families.
Following the talks, wild rice soup and bannock were served, and the crowd mingled and spoke with those who had made presentations.
While the single session may not have remedied a much larger societal issue, Noble said she hopes that it makes an impact, and that they may offer similar seminars in the future to continue the conversation and the work of reconciliation.
“We were hoping maybe having this would enrich other people and explain some of the culture and some of the reasons they get so upset with us,” Noble said.
“I wanted to apologize to [the person who was offended] but I’ve never been able to catch up to him and he’s never called me.
“I’m going to talk to Sheila and take a look at some of the programs that she could maybe bring back, and maybe in the spring we’ll do another one.”
For her part, McMahon said she is willing to return in the future, and extended an invitation to those at the senior centre to visit and take part in different events going on at UNFC.
“We’d be willing,” she said.
“The Friendship Centre is always, I think, about cultural awareness. We have the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and we have our Dec. 6 coming up honouring women, and there’s so many things coming up that we’ll be celebrating, and just acknowledging that, the different parts of the history that we need to . . . not keep alive, but provide that education on why we do it.”
