This Thursday is the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will be holding events as part of Truth and Reconciliation week (https://nctr.ca/) and APTN also has a day of broadcasting planned (https://www.aptn.ca/ndtr/) or perhaps you might consider donating to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (https://www.irsss.ca/) or an Indigenous-led organization like A7G who is doing awesome community-based on-the-land work (https://www.a7g.ca/donate.html).
In June when the unmarked graves of beautiful children were beginning to be identified at Residential "Schools" I called together a group of Settler facilitators, scholars, and, activists and we put together a letter writing event called Taking Action Together where over 300 folks came together in community to write letters to our MPs amplifying the demands of Indigenous people we had seen in our circles, online, and in the media. Our goal was to not burden Indigenous folks at that time, many of whom were grieving.
This Thursday to mark the holiday, we are planning another version of Taking Action Together, this time to write either (1) newly (re)elected MPs to amplify Indigenous voices and calls for justice or (2) his holiness Pope Francis to amplify the calls from National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations RoseAnne Archibald and President of the Manitoba Métis Federation David Chartrand to have the Pope travel to this land to issue an apology (as stated in Call to Action #58).
We have scheduled the event from 6:30-8:00PM EST on the 30th on Zoom, and if people would like to sign up to join us or to receive the templates, they can here bit.ly/TA2Gether
Please note: I have had some conversations and have received positive feedback about holding this event on the 30th, however, since it is the first National holiday of this sort, I acknowledge that this might not be the right time for non-Indigenous people to take action in this way, and so if we get feedback from Indigenous folks asking us to postpone, we will.