On Friday, May 5, students from Savory and Ruth King elementary schools and Spencer Middle School will hang red dresses across Goldstream Avenue to honour and remember missing and murdered Indigenous women, children and two-spirit people.
On Red Dress Day and National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People, the three schools will be working alongside Na’tsa’maht Indigenous Education, Hulitan Family and Community Services Society, and Journeys of the Heart, an Indigenous preschool, to take time to pause and reflect.
“We also want to share and celebrate the strength of Indigenous women and relay how honoured women are in Indigenous culture and communities,” said Renee Hislop, principal of Savory Elementary School.
“It is important in our work towards Truth and Reconciliation, that we teach this to our young people in a way that tells the story of Indigenous peoples both past and present. It’s really important to us that we share this truth in a way that honours but does not traumatize children. Our children are our future, and they are going to make the difference.”
Red Dress Day started in 2010 after artist Jaime Black’s REDress project inspired the movement to pay respect to the Indigenous victims of racialized and gendered violence in Canada.
Since then, May 5 has been a day to pay respect and raise awareness for the Indigenous women, children, and two-spirit people.
In 2014, the RCMP identified 1,181 Indigenous women and girls who were murdered or went missing in Canada between 1980 and 2012.
Stats Canada also released a report in July 2017 stating that Indigenous women represent 10 per cent of the total population of missing women in Canada while only making up 3% of Canada’s total female population.
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Hislop expresses that this year they want to “bring awareness to strong female Indigenous voices and to share that Indigenous females have not and are not always treated with kindness. We want to, as a community, stand in solidarity wearing red to send a message that this is not OK, and we will work together to change this.”
“In classrooms at Savory Elementary, they have been teaching the themes of connections Indigenous peoples have with generations before and how this is passed down through literacy. Connections between mothers and children, the strength of Indigenous women in family and community, connections to Indigenous identity and Indigenous world views,” said Hislop.
Friday, the community and schools will walk and drum together starting at Ruth King Elementary School at 9:45 a.m. and head to Savory Elementary School as red dresses will be seen on Goldstream Avenue along with red lights the City of Langford will display.
Once students and the community have arrived at Savory Elementary School, the school will have an assembly where female Indigenous voices Elder Shirley Alphonse, Breanne Bear, Marlene Clifton, Jo-Ina Young, and Doreen Scow share their stories. After the speeches, a tea, coffee and bannock time will commence.
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