On September 30, students and staff across Niagara Catholic dressed in orange t-shirts in memory, honour, and support of residential school survivors. Our senior leadership team, some of our central leadership team, trustees, and students also participated in the fourth annual Unity Walk in Fort Erie, in solidarity with the Indigenous community.
For those who attended it was a moving experience, as a sea of orange made its way from Mather Arch in Fort Erie to the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre on Buffalo Road, where speakers shared their truths about residential schools and looked toward healing. Director of Education Camillo Cipriano and Chair of the Board Danny Di Lorenzo laid a wreath in the memorial garden.
This visible show of support is important, but it must go far deeper than that.
Our Catholic faith teaches us that reconciliation is atonement for our sins. It is also defined as the restoration of friendly relations, and the notion of bringing one view or belief compatible with each other.
As a Catholic school board, Niagara Catholic is committed to reconciliation with the Indigenous community in all its meanings.
Our five-year strategic plan, Called by Name: Listening, Learning, and Leading guides us to do two of the most important things we can do to truly move forward in our goal of reconciliation; listening, and learning.
We must continue to listen to and have complex and often uncomfortable conversations with survivors of residential schools and their families, accepting their experiences as truth. We are in a long stage of that, said Indigenous Lead Gary Parker. But that’s the way it must be.
We must learn from their stories with open hearts and open minds, so we can fully understand the harm caused by residential schools and the intergenerational trauma to the Indigenous community that remains.
Only then can we focus on leading by example, in our words and our deeds, as evidence of our solidarity with Indigenous people and our commitment to truth and reconciliation.
