Most classes were cancelled on Wednesday, September 18 – the first of the four days surrounding the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Vancouver. Launched in 2008, this was the last TRC held on the west coast; the last event will be held in Ottawa 2014.  TRC is a national-wide event to collect survivors’ testimonies and to inform the public about the impact of residential schools on Aboriginal communities. Multiple programs and events were taking place around the UBC campus and at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE).  Everyone was strongly encouraged to participate.  As UBC students who are using, studying and living on ancestral land from the Musqueams, it is only justified for us to learn more about the Aboriginals and hear their voice to what really happened during that grim period in Canadian history.  The stories told by the residential school survivors were quite upsetting. Children, as young as five, were forcibly separated from their communities and sent to the schools to assimilate to the mainstream Canadian society.  There were a great number of children who fell ill and did not return to their communities at all; mortality rates were over 50%. Even to this day, residential schools had a tremendous and profound impact on survivors as well as their communities. Survivors, recovering from sexual, physical and physiological abuse, had a difficult time integrating back to their communities and some were even passing the aggressive behavior down to their own families.

I believe that many of us might not have known about this dark history of Canada if classes had not been suspended. And indeed, I think this was quite successful in raising the awareness of students, parents, faculty members and the community alike to recognize the truth behind the residential school system. The TRC reminds us of the significance of communicating and connecting with the entire community, which is also relevant to what we learned about in class about social responsibility and connecting with others. Aboriginals are the first settlers to arrive and have generously offered to share their ancestral land for our benefits.  They are our neighbors, partners and teachers; there is actually so much we can learn from them. For instance, it is well-known that Aboriginals know the land the best and their traditional way of living harmoniously with nature can be applied to our Western lifestyle.  We should take the time to assist them in their long journey to recovery and cultural preservation since the Aboriginals are also a fundamental part of Canadian history.

If you want to understand more about the history of the residential school system, there is actually an exhibition on the St. Michael’s Residential School being held at the Museum of Anthropology right on the grounds of UBC. Check out this link for more information: http://moa.ubc.ca/experience/exhibit_details.php?id=1209

Here is our group’s update regarding the project!

Our first site visit, represented by Drew and Jasmine, with the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society (GVFBS) on September 18 went exceptionally well.  We had the pleasure of meeting both the Manager and the Web Outreach of the Fresh Choice Kitchen Program. They mentioned that the GVFBS has recently launched a new mandate that not only focuses on providing nourishing emergency foods, but to better educate the public about safe food practices. Their wish is our LFS 350 group to incorporate the scientific portion to the “Train-the-Trainer” workshop with “usability” in mind in terms of language, literacy and geographical application, i.e. both Vancouver and Vernon. The course will be taught to a wide range of audience and should be understandable for those without a science background, i.e. food facilitators, health organizations, chefs, individuals with canning experience, Aboriginals and Environmental Health Officers. The questions that my group suggested during our first meeting were also answered at this time. One of the proposed volunteer opportunities appeared to very promising; it would involve sorting cans or warehouse products every few years.  Although “warehouse or can sorting” may sound mundane, the participant would be given the opportunity to witness the change in food donation choices over the years as there is a growing interest in nutritional eating. Our group promised to send our project’s timeline to GVFBS once we have our proposal finalized at our next group meeting.  To date, we have received an electronic copy of the current manual and are waiting for the compilation of questions that have already been answered.  See you the following week!