National Indigenous Peoples Day - June 21, 2021

What Celebrating/Recognizing National Indigenous

Day in Canada means to me

Boozhoo, Koolamalsi, Greetings,

My name is Wabusk skweow kahetopit (Polar Bear Woman Who is Looking Ahead). I am Anishinabe Lenaapeew (Ojibway/Lenape woman) from the Moravian of the Thames, known today as Eelunaapeewi Lahkeewiit (Delaware Nation).

What it means to me to Recognize and Celebrate National Indigenous Day and National Indigenous History month comes from the experience as a second-generation survivor of the Canadian Indian Residential School system. For me, to be Indigenous are these three action words; resiliency, reclamation, and intergenerational wisdom, my mother. The original waters I come from: My mother was dismembered from her nation, her culture, her identity, and her language due to the impact of patriarchal colonial structures like the Indian Act, the residential school system. My mother had a really difficult time fitting in when she left the residential school. She felt disconnected from her community, her family, and her culture. This had a ripple effect on the next generation. As a little girl growing up I was dismembered, as well. I was raised in a eurocentric colonial system of racism, bullying that led me to believe that “I am not good enough”, which stripped away my sense of self-worth and my identity. It was in the late 90's I began my process of recovery and reclaiming my Indigenous heritage.

“ resiliency, reclamation, and intergenerational wisdom”

Miigweech (Thank you) to the Sisters of St Joseph Hospitality Detoxification Centre. In the 1990s, it was there at that particular detox centre in London, Ontario that I started my journey to re-member, re-claim, and re-search who I truly am. I may have stumbled here and there on this Red Path. I did start to believe there was a path that has always been charted for me. It is through ceremony, teachings, and sitting with elders. There was one particular life lesson, I value: and that is to forgive and let go.

“It is time to acknowledge that it is Indigenous Peoples Day every day”

I learned it is the act of resiliency within my own intergenerational wisdom that I was able to reclaim who I am. I am an Anishinabe/Lenaapeew kwe(Lenaapeew/Objiway woman) and Ndaa’miigeyaabi maapii (we are still here).

It is time to acknowledge that it is Indigenous Peoples Day every day and it's about all Indigenous People of Turtle Island (North America) to be able to acknowledge ourselves as resilient Indigenous People. It is a celebration of life as we continue to reclaim who we are.

Therefore, every day when we wake up let us give thanks to the Creator for this breath of life, and give thanks to all of creation, the universe, and our ancestors for blessing us this day to live, love, and re-learn.

“Let us give thanks to the Creator for this breath of life”

This wise elder whose name translated in english: Pathfinder baa, he who has passed on, taught me this and it is what I live by: “Life is a Ceremony, Ceremony is all about Life”. This is what it is to me to be Indigenous and to recognize National Indigenous Day and National Indigenous history month.

Miigweech, Anushiik

All My Relations

Wabusk skweow kahetopit (Polar Bear Woman Who is Looking Ahead)

M.Tracey Whiteye

Learn More about National Indigenous Peoples Day here

WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20th

WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20, 2021

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the stranger, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Dt. 10:17-19.

World Refugee Day, what does that title bring to your mind?  The many Syrian refugees who made it to Canada in the last 7 years or so, or the endless stream of Rohingiya that fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh? Do you know that there are more than 79.5 million refugees and displaced people worldwide?

The UNHCR – the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – established by the General Assembly of the UN in 1951 and ratified by 145 states, works in 135 states trying to help stateless people and refugees displaced by violence, conflict, and persecution. Climate change also brings about more and more refugees but no legal path for their safety has yet been established.

The latest wave of refugees has come from the city of Goma, Province of North Kivu, and its surrounding area, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, an area already plagued by many problems.  There, on June 1st the Nyiragongo volcano erupted, causing some 450,000 people to flee.  The UNHCR is preparing places for some of these refugees in neighbouring Rwanda at the Busamana Congolese refugee site. 

Let us also not forget the over 72,000 Palestinians from the Gaza strip displaced by the Israeli-Palestinian hostility last month. That probably brings the total number of displaced persons and refugees to 80 million.

Half of the world’s refugees are children. In 2019, more than two-thirds of all refugees came from just five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar.  Currently, Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees, 3.6 million and Colombia is hosting 1.8 million Venezuelans. In 2019 only half a per cent of the world’s refugees were resettled and last year, because of Covid-19, the number was most likely much less. Over the past decade, just over one million refugees were resettled, compared to 3.9 million refugees who returned to their countries. As always 85% of refugees are being hosted in developing countries. What does that picture tell us?

“Wealthier countries aren’t doing nearly enough to share the cost of protecting people who have left everything behind. Appeals for humanitarian assistance for refugees are consistently – and often severely – underfunded.” (A.I.) “Many wealthier states continue to prioritize policies that will deter people from seeking asylum and finding ways to stop people coming altogether”. (A.I.) This, in turn, leads to desperate refugees having to take greater risks, such as handing themselves over to traffickers, getting into unseaworthy vessels, etc.

Manyovu Transit Camp

Canadians have tried to do their best, especially through sponsoring many Syrian refugees.  That is to be applauded but it is only a drop in the bucket!   For example, 2 years ago, a Karen sponsored refugee family, that had been living in refugee camps for 20 years, – all their children were born in refugee camps – came to St. Michael’s R.C. Parish.  What an endless time of languishing and hoping, hoping and hoping…Thankfully, they are settling in more and more!

Have you ever noticed how some of the Psalms speak of what refugees go through every day?  Pray these Psalms for them to keep up their courage.

How does the lack of money given to UNHCR show in the everyday life of refugees? From personal sponsoring experience with four young adult refugees, regarded as a family, I can tell you how small and extremely simple their food ration is: for one month they receive: 40 kg of cornflower, 12 kg of beans, 1 litre of vegetable oil and 0.4 gr. of salt. That is it for food for one month for a 4-member adult family!  They also receive 1 small piece of soap each for 2 months!  No feminine hygiene products are provided. 

We all know that the UN can only do what its member states agree to.  It seems even worse with UNHCR: UNHCR depends on the goodwill of the country in which it is operating. For example, to get refugee identity papers corrected can take forever if the country you landed in, is not favourably disposed to refugees or to a certain nationality, and who can blame them if they are carrying a much heavier weight than countries that have greater means to support refugees?

We are getting to the root of the problem.  As A.I. puts it: “In short, the world urgently needs a new, global plan based on genuine international cooperation and a meaningful sharing of responsibilities.” Doesn’t that echo Pope Francis’ encyclicals of Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti?

We need to use our power as citizens in lobbying for worthwhile humanitarian causes and bring them to the fore in election periods. We need to be aware of what our federal budget is used for and what Canadian foreign policies can help stem the flow of refugees. And next, are regulations set in place to prevent human rights and environmental abuses, for example in Canadian mining companies operating globally - being observed, controlled, and enforced if not?

We need to support refugee agencies financially, if able.  The Covid-19 recession is expected to push 115 million people into extreme poverty.   During this month of June there is a chance for UNHCR and/or Development and Peace and probably A.I. as well, to win $ 20,000.00 if you donate to one of these organizations on the Canada Helps platform.  Or again, try to be ready to help with government or privately sponsored refugees, as this last part of 2021 could well overwhelm supportive agencies if, to make up for the sponsorships postponed or delayed because of Covid-19, too many refugees arrive all at once. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by your newfound friends!

And in the spirit of anti-racism, if you can, give a refugee a job, no matter from what country they come! Their hard work will please you and will quickly make up for any early language barriers you may have to struggle with.

Through your companionship with refugees or your work for refugees on whatever level, may you experience Christ’s promise:

“Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing….

Lord, and when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”  Mt. 25: 34-35; 38, 40.

-Sister Maria van Leeuwen, C.S.J.

 [Basic statistics and information based on UNHCR-Canada, Amnesty International, Development and Peace, plus personal experience.] 

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June 20 is World Refugee Day. See how you can get involved in refugee support with this toolkit from the UN Refugee Agency. #WorldRefugeeDay

https://www.unhcr.org/609553414/world-refugee-day-2021-toolkit-pdf

When father doesn’t know best

I’m a father. My children are 12 and 9.

I don’t know what it’s like to have my kids taken from me.

I don't know what it’s like to have them removed from our home and sent to a place where they were forbidden to speak their language or practice their culture. A place where they normalized nightmarish emotional and physical abuse, bullying, deprivation, and death.

I don’t know what it’s like to be abandoned and betrayed by the government.

And I don’t know or understand the true history of our country.

What I now know is that for more than a century, 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit kids were subjected to residential schools where the prime directive was assimilation.

I now know that we have a responsibility to seek out, understand and acknowledge the truth. And that everyone in Canada can contribute to reconciliation.

And I know that on this Father’s Day (and every day), it’s not good enough to teach our kids what our fathers taught us.

It’s far more important we teach them the things they didn’t.

Please read.

Please listen.

Please give.

-Jeff Sage is a resident of London, Ontario.

Graduating during Covid

Graduating during COVID-19 is a weird experience. There was very little celebration on the last day of class, I remember that I had biology and when the lesson ended I thanked her for all that she has done during the past 2 years that I have had her as a teacher and then I closed my computer. There wasn't any yelling in the halls or high-fives, I simply closed my computer and had lunch. My emotions that day were fairly neutral and the rest of the day was insignificant as I carried out the same routine that I have been doing for months at this point. I think that all the other students agree with me in saying that we are all looking forward to university where we can make up for the lost social interactions and events that were cancelled because of Covid.

Everybody I talk to isn't focussed on what we missed out on in the last year of high school, but rather what is to come in university. It's almost like missing the last year of high school has amplified all the excitement of going off to university. That being said, I think it's safe to say that everybody in my grade is saddened and a little frustrated that we couldn't have our final prom, or go to school sports events, it definitely feels as though the social part of high school is missing, and there is nothing we can do to have a similar experience to those in the past. 

To be frank, there aren't any substitutes that could fulfill an in-person graduation or grad party. There have been some parties hosted by students in my grade, however, they are unsafe and have caused a significant amount of Covid cases. If it weren't for the risk I would have gone but I can't put my family in that situation. I am lucky in that I have made friends with the people in my neighbourhood and we can hang out and socialize, however, some of my classmates don't have the luxury of spending time with friends and have gone into depressive states.

In summary, there isn't really any substitute for our graduation being cancelled by Covid and some members of my class are truly struggling to cope with this reality. That's why I think it's important to routinely check-in and talk to people that you haven't seen in person for some time, if they aren't doing so well mentally you should try and help them cope with what they are going through. 

-Sean Lizzola | Sean is 18 and recently graduated from Upper Canada College in Toronto. Sean is the grand-nephew of Sister Ann Marshall, CSJ.