Google the significance of the colour orange and the search engine will tell you it represents determination.
Next week, wearing orange will also send the message that every child matters.
Wednesday, Sept. 30 is Orange Shirt Day, a national event dedicated to educating Canadians about the troubling legacy of this country’s residential school system and its impact on Indigenous people.
To help the cause, Indigenous Education is encouraging all Niagara College staff and students to wear orange while working from home or if they’re on campus, and participate in a free virtual event that will tie together resources and activities happening on campus and throughout Canada related to the day.
“This year is unique being virtual. We can access really great resources at the national level. It’s also barrier-free,” said Ashley Buck, Indigenous student success leader and member of the Onondaga Nation. “We really want to have that global impact. We want to reach the whole Niagara College community and impact all students.”
The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday on Facebook, will include student voices and a message from Tom Price, NC Student Administrative Council president. Educational videos will also be shared online along with connections to national events, including with Phyllis Webstad, the Indigenous woman who inspired Orange Shirt Day.
Staff and students are encouraged to wear orange to send the message that every child matters and post their photos to the Facebook event page.
There are currently 300 self-identified Indigenous students attending Niagara College, Buck noted.
Orange Shirt Day officially started in 2013. Its origins are rooted in Webstad’s experiences as a child at a residential school near Williams Lake, B.C.
Webstad entered St. Joseph Mission Residential School in 1973 when she was six. She wore a new orange shirt on her first day but it was confiscated and replaced with a school uniform.
The experience impacted Webstad in a way that made her feel worthless and insignificant — feelings with which she still contends.
Sept. 30 was chosen as Orange Shirt Day because that was the date when children would be taken from their communities to residential schools, which have a dark history of mental, sexual and physical abuse, and deprivation.
The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.
“The primary focus for Orange Shirt Day is and will continue to be education, for our students it is an acknowledgment and understanding of the intergenerational trauma they may have experience and their resiliency,” Buck said. “We want to make sure this is about awareness. Phyllis Webstad wants to stress that importance.”
