Indigenous people want healing owed to them: Harpe – St. Albert Today

“We did not do this to ourselves,” says residential school survivor

Residential school survivor Stephanie Harpe said Indigenous communities want to heal from the trauma inflicted on them by the province and the country.

Harpe, who is an international advocate for Murdered, Missing, Exploited Indigenous Peoples (MMEIP), and the program coordinator at the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women, shared her experiences with the St. Albert Rotary club on July 10.

Harpe is a survivor of residential school, among other atrocities inflicted upon her.

First opened in 1876 as part of the Indian Act, residential schools were created to strip Indigenous children of their culture and assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children attended these religious schools. These children were removed from their families, deprived of their ancestral language, and many were physically and sexually abused. As many as 6,000 children are thought to have died in residential schools.

Read More: https://www.stalberttoday.ca/local-news/indigenous-people-want-healing-owed-to-them-harpe-2573759