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This article was published 22/10/2021 (1470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Residents of Portage La Prairie have come together as one to recognize Indigenous community members who did and did not survive the impact of residential schools in Canada.
Through the joint efforts of many participants, thousands of orange and red handprints have been painted across the city to acknowledge the Every Child Matters and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls movements.
“I’d like to say it was a collaboration, we knew there needed to be something done in Portage to honour the survivors of Residential Schools,” said Megan Romphf, cultural connector with Portage Local Immigration Partnership.
“Orange Shirt Day was coming up and it all came together. We wanted to do handprints to show we care in Portage and this is what we came up with.”
At the end of September, Romphf, who ia a member of the Portage Community Revitalization Corporation, reached out to the Portage La Prairie School Division in the hope of finding students and community members to participate. After teaming up with Jill Fast, Indigenous academic achievement facilitator for the division, the project, entitled Paving the way for Reconciliation, quickly got underway.
“PCRC and I have been visiting the schools and we’ve given every classroom the opportunity to do orange handprints from kindergarten to Grade 12,” Fast said.
“We’ve worked with eight schools in Portage La Prairie now.”
A few weeks later, 8,895 handprints have been painted in orange and red along Crescent Road in Portage. The red handprints symbolize standing in solidarity with MMIWG, while the orange ones represent the remains of each child discovered within the mass graves recently found across Canada. Several daycares and other organizations joined in the PCRC project.
“Trinity United Church, they have a daycare and they jumped on board and said ‘Please put this on our steps and let others know we are trying to work on reconciliation ourselves’,” Romphf said.
It is all part of an effort lead by people such as Romphf and Fast to educate the city on the hardships the Indigenous communities in the surrounding areas have faced in the past.
Both women are a part of the Circles for Reconciliation group in Portage and have trained with Cornell Pashe, an Indigenous co-ordinator.
“I think it’s important. With Orange Shirt Day starting in 2013, schools in our school division have been commemorating the day for a few years now,” Fast said.
“It’s nice to bridge the City of Portage and the school divisions to continue to do more each year and raise awareness. I was very happy when PCRC and Megan approached the school division and we said ‘Yes, we would like to do that in our schools.”’
“I was saying in our teachings to the kids, reconciliation is more than just one day,” Romphf said.
“It’s about living it, breathing it and doing your part as a non-Indigenous or Indigenous person to move forward together in unity. I think this is what we were trying to do in Portage is show that we care about what reconciliation means.”
Over the course of the month, both women have found that the community has stepped up its efforts to bridge the gap in recognizing reconciliation through this project, rather than the notion of the idea being forgotten.
“I think that people want to move forward with reconciliation and actually gain a better understanding of the harms and the traumas that Indigenous people have had to face and go through,” Romphf said.
“This is a small part of what PCRC and I can do to move forward, and we’re getting communities to be involved in community.”
“The local First Nation communities like Long Plain, Dakota Tipi, Dakota Plains, we have a high Indigenous urban population in Portage La Prairie so it’s really special that we’re starting to come together more and more in the spirit of reconciliation between the city and First Nations,” Fast said.
Built in 1916, the former Indian Residential School location on Long Plain First Nation, which was closed in 1975 and is now property of the First Nation, is a stark reminder of the area’s past.
Fast said the symbolism of this project stretches far beyond the paint.
“Seeing each individual kid make their orange handprint, there’s symbolism of hands working together,” Fast said.
“There’s symbolism of doing your part for the big picture. The idea of we can’t be silenced anymore. We just feel like its kids and hands coming together in the spirit of reconciliation.”
“Every time someone looks down they start to question why they are there,” Romphf said.
“We want people to get knowledge of reconciliation. The community has really come out to support, how they can get more involved. There are 94 calls to action and part of that is how we move forward.”
Residents of Portage La Prairie have come together as one to recognize Indigenous community members who did and did not survive the impact of residential schools in Canada.
Through the joint efforts of many participants, thousands of orange and red handprints have been painted across the city to acknowledge the Every Child Matters and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls movements.
JOSEPH BERNACKI
Oct. 19, 2021 - Jill Fast (left) and Megan Romphf have partnered with eight schools in the Portage La Prairie School Division to have classrooms join in the Paving the way for Reconciliation project. 8,895 handprints were painted in red and orange across Crescent Road and parts of the community over the month of October. (JOSEPH BERNACKI/CANSTAR COMMUNITY NEWS/HEADLINER)
“I’d like to say it was a collaboration, we knew there needed to be something done in Portage to honour the survivors of Residential Schools,” said Megan Romphf, cultural connector with Portage Local Immigration Partnership.
“Orange Shirt Day was coming up and it all came together. We wanted to do handprints to show we care in Portage and this is what we came up with.”
At the end of September, Romphf, who ia a member of the Portage Community Revitalization Corporation, reached out to the Portage La Prairie School Division in the hope of finding students and community members to participate. After teaming up with Jill Fast, Indigenous academic achievement facilitator for the division, the project, entitled Paving the way for Reconciliation, quickly got underway.
“PCRC and I have been visiting the schools and we’ve given every classroom the opportunity to do orange handprints from kindergarten to Grade 12,” Fast said.
“We’ve worked with eight schools in Portage La Prairie now.”
A few weeks later, 8,895 handprints have been painted in orange and red along Crescent Road in Portage. The red handprints symbolize standing in solidarity with MMIWG, while the orange ones represent the remains of each child discovered within the mass graves recently found across Canada. Several daycares and other organizations joined in the PCRC project.
“Trinity United Church, they have a daycare and they jumped on board and said ‘Please put this on our steps and let others know we are trying to work on reconciliation ourselves’,” Romphf said.
JOSEPH BERNACKI
Oct. 19, 2021 - Trinity United Church is one of several community members that quickly jumped on board joining the Paving the way for Reconciliation project. The church asked to have orange handprints painted on the front steps as a way to acknowledge to the community that they are working on an understanding of reconciliation. (JOSEPH BERNACKI/CANSTAR COMMUNITY NEWS/HEADLINER)
It is all part of an effort lead by people such as Romphf and Fast to educate the city on the hardships the Indigenous communities in the surrounding areas have faced in the past.
Both women are a part of the Circles for Reconciliation group in Portage and have trained with Cornell Pashe, an Indigenous co-ordinator.
“I think it’s important. With Orange Shirt Day starting in 2013, schools in our school division have been commemorating the day for a few years now,” Fast said.
“It’s nice to bridge the City of Portage and the school divisions to continue to do more each year and raise awareness. I was very happy when PCRC and Megan approached the school division and we said ‘Yes, we would like to do that in our schools.”’
“I was saying in our teachings to the kids, reconciliation is more than just one day,” Romphf said.
“It’s about living it, breathing it and doing your part as a non-Indigenous or Indigenous person to move forward together in unity. I think this is what we were trying to do in Portage is show that we care about what reconciliation means.”
JOSEPH BERNACKI
Oct. 19, 2021 - 8,895 handprints were painted across different parts of the Portage La Prairie community. The prints seen here are found along Crescent Road in the city. (JOSEPH BERNACKI/CANSTAR COMMUNITY NEWS/HEADLINER)
Over the course of the month, both women have found that the community has stepped up its efforts to bridge the gap in recognizing reconciliation through this project, rather than the notion of the idea being forgotten.
“I think that people want to move forward with reconciliation and actually gain a better understanding of the harms and the traumas that Indigenous people have had to face and go through,” Romphf said.
“This is a small part of what PCRC and I can do to move forward, and we’re getting communities to be involved in community.”
“The local First Nation communities like Long Plain, Dakota Tipi, Dakota Plains, we have a high Indigenous urban population in Portage La Prairie so it’s really special that we’re starting to come together more and more in the spirit of reconciliation between the city and First Nations,” Fast said.
Built in 1916, the former Indian Residential School location on Long Plain First Nation, which was closed in 1975 and is now property of the First Nation, is a stark reminder of the area’s past.
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Fast said the symbolism of this project stretches far beyond the paint.
“Seeing each individual kid make their orange handprint, there’s symbolism of hands working together,” Fast said.
JOSEPH BERNACKI
Oct. 19, 2021 - Built in 1916, the former Indian Residential School located on Long Plain First Nation was shut down in 1975. Now the home for the Long Plain First Nation police headquarters, the building is a reflection of Canada's past and the residential school system. (JOSEPH BERNACKI/CANSTAR COMMUNITY NEWS/HEADLINER)
“There’s symbolism of doing your part for the big picture. The idea of we can’t be silenced anymore. We just feel like its kids and hands coming together in the spirit of reconciliation.”
“Every time someone looks down they start to question why they are there,” Romphf said.
“We want people to get knowledge of reconciliation. The community has really come out to support, how they can get more involved. There are 94 calls to action and part of that is how we move forward.”
