Weblog #4 – Post #3: First Nations Women & Legacy of Residential Schools

This powerful digital storytelling project provided a voice for First Nations women who were personally impacted by residential schools. Prairie Women’s Health Centre for Excellence posted and shared six digital stories, created by professional First Nations women whose mothers survived residential schools.  The theme of the project is understanding the legacy that residential schools pass on between generations.  The filmmakers: Lorena Fontaine, Lisa Forbes, Wendy McNab, Claudette Michell, Lisa Murdock, and Roberta Stout, share profound stories of their mothers that centre around hope, resilience, and healing.

The site provides the following description of digital stories:

A “digital story” is a 2-5 minute video. It is a personal narrative coupled with a collection of still images, video, and music which illustrates an individual’s story. Indigenous peoples’ stories are intellectual traditions that can disrupt colonial narratives of history, recognize injustice, celebrate resistance, and envision the future. Researchers and communities are increasingly recognizing the healing properties of visual and narrative approaches; thus this project both generated information about the experiences of women whose mothers attended residential schools and served a therapeutic purpose. Digital media can make these concerns more visible to the world and exchange knowledges and sensibilities that support self-representation and self-determination.