CANADA
Medicine Hat News
BY PEGGY REVELL ON MARCH 5, 2015.
prevell@medicinehatnews.com
@MHNprevell
Hope for healing, hope for understanding, hope for the future.
“People are going to learn to get together from all of this … I feel it,” said Winston Wadsworth, following Wednesday’s banquet in honour of those like himself who are survivors of Canada’s residential school system — one of many ceremonies and events marking Healing and Reconciliation week in Medicine Hat, and organized by the Miywasin Centre and the Blood Tribe Department Inc.
For Wadsworth, the week has been a special one as it brings people together. He hopes it helps people understand what indigenous people have been through, to understand, for example, the “why” when they see a homeless aboriginal person.
The week has included often an emotional sharing of stories by elders and survivors like Wadsworth —of being taken away from their families at a young age for months and years at a time, of being beaten, abused, denied their culture and language, of growing up with parents who also survived residential schools, of how many turned to drugs and alcohol, of the friends and family they’ve lost.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.