WINNIPEG, MB – The University of Winnipeg’s Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies (IWGS), and the Women’s and Gender Studies and Aboriginal Governance departments will present a healing quilt to the TRC Commissioners at the Traditional Call to Gather TODAY at 5:00 pm at the Forks at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s historic national event. The quilt is bound by quilt blocks created by students and compiled into a remarkable piece of art by quilter and UWinnipeg’s Aboriginal Students’ Academic Advisor Andrea McCluskey.
Contributed to Important Discussions
The Healing Quilt project – led by Professors Roewan Crowe, Lorena Fontaine and Fiona Green, and IWGS Communications and Outreach worker Kim Hunter – engaged students in a dialogue on the legacy of Residential Schools in Canada through both course work and art. During this project students contributed to the important discussion on reconciliation that is necessary to educate Canadians about the legacy of Residential Schools.
Meaningful Relationships
“Creating quilt pieces in our classrooms were a way to create space to be with and reflect upon the legacy of Residential Schools,” explained Crowe, Fontaine and Green. “Through this project we were able to create new and meaningful relationships both inside and outside of the classroom and together we made a quilt of hope and healing.”
Three courses in Fall 2009 had a portion of the curriculum dedicated to reading material on, and studying the impact of, Indian Residential Schools. The students also participated in an art project in the spirit of the “Living Healing Quilt Project,” which was created by textile artist Alice Olsen Williams and accompanied the Chief Commissioner of the TRC Justice Murray Sinclair to his visit to UWinnipeg in September 2009.
The quilt, along with the stories accompanying each block, will be gifted to the TRC to remember, the legacy of Residential Schools and honour the survivors and their impact on all Canadians.
New Scholarships
UWinnipeg President & Vice-Chancellor Lloyd Axworthy will also be at the Call to Gather, as he has been invited to speak. Axworthy will announce two new scholarships that honour residential school survivors and their descendents.
