Every child matters.
The Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed collective recognizes with grief and wishes to honour the 215 children whose bodies were found at the residential school in colonially called Kamloops, BC, and all residential school survivors as well as those who never made it home from residential school. The residential/boarding school system is one of the many horrific ways that the Canadian and American nation-states have enacted genocide on Indigenous peoples.
Indigenous children should grow up experiencing joy, beauty, love, support, nourishment, laughter, in their community, on their land, with clean water, with their family, speaking their languages, encompassed by the brilliant wisdom of their cultures, knowledges, and teachings. Acknowledgements are not enough. Feelings of grief are not enough. Settlers, we have responsibilities.
The only way forward is decolonization (that is, the restitution of Indigenous lands and lives to Indigenous peoples – see Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization is not a metaphor”) and abolition (that is, the end of settler colonial structures, systems, and institutions).
Have you read and committed to the TRC Calls to Action? Are you helping to hold the Government of Canada responsible for the urgent need to honour these calls, and for its current failure and refusal to uphold this ongoing responsibility? Settlers, we must read, listen to, witness, and commit to the TRC Calls to Action: http://trc.ca/assets/pdf/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf. And we must always remember that reading is only the beginning. Reading alone is not enough, no where near enough. How will we — each and every one of us — commit to and work towards the Calls to Action every single day and for the long-term?
We share just some of the amazing and urgent community-led Indigenous initiatives that we can support in concrete ways, and which are dedicated to land-back processes, Indigenous languages, and the thriving of Indigenous children.
- Make a financial contribution to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) at: irsss.ca/donate. The IRSSS is an “organization with a twenty-year history of providing services to Indian Residential School Survivors.”
- Make a financial contribution to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition at: https://boardingschoolhealing.org/about-us/donate/. The Healing Coalition’s “[m]ission…is t]o lead in the pursuit of understanding and addressing the ongoing trauma created by the U.S. Indian Boarding School policy.”
- One of the co-facilitators of the collective, Ashley Caranto Morford, grew up as an uninvited occupant in Duwamish territory, so we want to shout out Real Rent Duwamish, “a grassroots movement calling on Seattleites to pay ‘rent’ to the Duwamish Tribe to acknowledge their stewardship of the land on which we live and work.” Settlers in Duwamish land can pay rent by going to: realrentduwamish.org. You can sign up to pay rent weekly, monthly, etc. “All funds go directly to Duwamish Tribal Services (DTS) to support the revival of Duwamish culture and the vitality of the Duwamish Tribe.
- Support the Dechinta Centre for Research & Learning. “Dechinta is the only fully land-based university accredited program in the world, and the only program explicitly mandated to serve Indigenous people.” Learn more & make a financial contribution at: https://www.dechinta.ca/donate
- Support RAVEN Trust & its campaigns, for ex. by becoming a monthly contributor. “RAVEN raises legal defence funds for Indigenous Peoples in Canada to defend their rights and the integrity of lands and cultures.” Visit: https://raventrust.com/
- There are so many wonderful community-led language projects and programs to support. One of these is Kwi Awt Stelmexw, “a non-profit organization that raises funds to support language and arts development in the Squamish Nation”: https://www.kwiawtstelmexw.com/donate/
- Another wonderful language program is the Kanienkehaka Land Back Language Camp, “a land based language camp in the middle of the Lac St. Francis Wildlife Sanctuary, on land that was leased to settlers over a 100 years ago.” Support at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/building-kanienkehaka-land-back-language-camp
- “The existing Line 3 is an Enbridge pipeline that ships crude oil from Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. It spans northern Minnesota, crossing the Leech Lake and Fond du Lac reservations and the l855, 1854, and l842 treaty areas. And it is a ticking time bomb. It was built with defective steel in l96l, has had numerous ruptures and spills, and is running at half pressure because of severe corrosion. Instead of cleaning up this liability, Enbridge wants to simply abandon it in the ground forever, and cut a brand new energy corridor through our best lakes, wetlands, and wild rice beds, and the heart of Ojibwe treaty territory. ” Learn more at: https://www.stopline3.org/issues. Join the fight to #StopLine3 at: https://www.stopline3.org/take-action
- Another fabulous, important organization you should support: First Nations Child & Family Caring Society, which works for “equity for First Nations children and young people, and reconciliation-based activities for all children in Canada.” Support at: https://fncaringsociety.com/donate
- And learn about & support Save the Evidence, “a campaign to raise awareness and support for the restoration of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School, and to develop the building into an Interpreted Historic Site and Educational Resource.” Visit: https://woodlandculturalcentre.ca/donate/
Indigenous children are beautiful. Indigenous children are sacred. Indigenous children are important. Indigenous children should grow up to live full, long, joy-filled lives. Every child matters.