Residential school survivor pleas for postcards

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This article was published 22/11/2021 (1601 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Vivian Ketchum grasps messages of love in a hand that was damaged with hate.

Ketchum, a second-generation residential school survivor, had her hand smashed with a shoe by a teacher after she failed to attend a dentist appointment, causing her finger to break and become permanently misshapen.

“I shut down to protect myself. I didn’t feel anything,” Ketchum, who attended Cecilia Jeffrey residential school in Kenora, Ont., said.

Shortly after Canada observed the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Ketchum went on the radio to put out a call for postcards in the hope of continuing the conversation.

Since mid-October, she’s received approximately 40 postcards from people of all ages, backgrounds and locations. One letter even came all the way from California.

“When I was in residential school they would send us home for the holidays,” Ketchum said. “One year, my parents didn’t pick up my sister and I, so they shipped us to Winnipeg to spend the holiday with church families.

“The older church lady who looked after me — she was good and safe — mailed me cinnamon hearts after I got back to Kenora. I wanted to use that idea with the postcards to see what people thought of reconciliation, how they’re going to carry it on and how it affects them.”

So far Ketchum has gotten an “amazing response.”

“It’s inspiring to continue with reconciliation,” she said. “If I’m having a down day, the postcards are healing. They’re reaching out to me on a personal level.”

Ketchum said a lot of the messages include apologies for Canada’s wrongdoings and details of how the sender plans to carry the message of reconciliation.

“I just try to tell them, ‘Don’t feel bad, if you do enough reconciliation we’ll see it, we’ll feel it and we’ll know it,’” she said.

A group of Vincent Massey Collegiate students responded to Ketchum’s request after their teacher, Liam Francis, heard her radio interview.

“I thought it was something we could do as a club since we’re trying to promote good things around our school and around our city,” Francis said.

Vincent Massey Collegiate is a UNESCO associated school, which means they are committed to peace, social justice and environmental concerns.

The UNESCO club — which is voluntary and meets at lunchtime with Francis — currently has somewhere between 40 and 50 members.

Shiven Srivastava and Desmond Langan are two Grade 12 students that took part in the project.

“It’s difficult to navigate truth and reconciliation, but it was reassuring to hear we were able to do something well,” Srivastava said. “We left the postcards open so people could share what they wanted, either to Vivian or the broader Indigenous community, but it was all focusing on the importance of reconciliation.”

“It was great. to hear her response and know what we did had an impact.” Langan added. “The club does a lot, but just to know what we’re doing matters was amazing.”

Ketchum hopes people will continue to send postcards to her at post office box (P.O. Box 16015, Centennial PO, Winnipeg, MB, R3A 0B1).