Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash

Orange Shirt Day

Every September 30th in Canada, we mark Orange Shirt Day, an initiative that began in 2013. On this day, we honour Phyllis Webstad and over 150,000 children who experienced the trauma of attending government-sanctioned residential schools. Phyllis was taken to St. Joseph Mission Residential School in British Columbia back in 1973; she was only six-years-old. When Phyllis arrived at the residential school wearing an orange shirt, she was forced to take it off to replace it with the school’s institutional uniform. Orange Shirt Day is a collective commitment to honour these children who were “collected” around September 30th to attend residential schools where they were exposed to abuse, neglect, systemic and overt racism, and separation from their loved ones and culture. 

The main goals of Orange Shirt Day include supporting Indian Residential School reconciliation, to witness and honour the healing journey of survivors and families, to commit to the ongoing process of truth and reconciliation, and to create awareness of the individual, familial, and communal intergenerational impacts of the residential school system in Canada. To honour Orange Shirt Day, the University of British Columbia’s Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre has developed a website where we can find more about the origins of Orange Shirt Day, along with relevant resources. 

Some of the resources that can be found on the website mentioned above include:

• Watch The Road Forward 
• Choose a BC school to explore and learn about in our records and collections.
• Listen to Survivor’s testimony in the Legacy of Hope collection.
• Read the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
• Explore the mental health services or approaches at CMHA.
• Read the TRC Calls to Action and look into how your university has implemented the calls.

Additional resources include:

• A free Coursera course developed by the University of Alberta called “Indigenous Canada” which contains information about Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada.
• SAGE- Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Enhancement, an Indigenous Mentoring initiative to enhance peer mentoring for Indigenous graduate students at UBC.
• Visit Indigenous Cinema for an online collection of Indigenous-made films. This documentary series focuses on Orange Shirt Day.
• Read the Canadian Psychological Association and Psychology Foundation of Canada’s Response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Report

 Do you have resources that you would like to share with us? E-mail us at cpsaubc@gmail.com.