An important part of healing broken relationships is building awareness about what damaged it. The month of September is back to school time for most children. Historically this marked the time of year where First Nations children were forcibly taken from their families and enrolled in boarding schools called Indian Residential Schools. The children were forcibly removed from their homes, often taken long distances away from their family and community for months or years at a time. The schools were designed to assimilate the children into western culture. They were not allowed to practice their culture, or speak their language at school. The children were often treated poorly. They were often subjected to mistreatments such as lack of proper nutrition and health care or worse. The goal - assimilation. Take the ‘Indian out of the child’ or as John A Macdonald said “get rid of the Indian problem.” The last federally operated residential school closed in 1996....
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