The Osgoode Indigenous Student Association (OISA) is selling orange t-shirts in the Law School’s Gowlings Hall to help with the remembrance of Orange Shirt Day. (Pictured, from left, are JD students Sabrina Molinari, Ben Hognestad and Samantha Craig-Curnow.)
Shirts will be sold on Tuesday, Sept. 27 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 28 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., and Friday, Sept. 30 from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m., with all proceeds from the fundraiser going to the Native Canadian Center of Toronto.
Additionally, on Sept. 30, OISA will be joined by Elder Cliff Standingready from 2:45 to 3:30 p.m. in Osgoode’s Moot Court for a discussion about the residential school experience, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the history of Orange Shirt Day. Members of the community are encouraged to join with OISA in wearing an orange shirt on Sept. 30, and in expressing solidarity with the reconciliation process and optimism for the future.
Orange Shirt Day is a legacy of the St. Joseph Mission residential school commemoration event held in Williams Lake, BC in the spring of 2013. It grew out of a student’s account of having her shiny new orange shirt taken away on her first day of school at the Mission, and it has become an opportunity to keep the discussion on all aspects of residential schools happening annually.
The date was chosen because it is the time of year in which children were taken from their homes to residential schools, and because it is an opportunity to set the stage for anti-racism and anti-bullying policies for the coming school year.
Orange Shirt Day is also an opportunity for First Nations, local governments, schools and communities to come together in the spirit of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.