July 25, 2022 - Keepers of the Water expresses our deepest compassion and understanding for all residential/day school survivors and their families, especially during the current Papal visit. Our message is one of love and support as we understand that each one of us is on our own personal healing journey from those experiences. Our prayers are with survivors and families during this emotional time.

We all have our own opinions based on our own lived experiences and we are all feeling many different emotions during this time. Your opinions, your emotional state, your feelings and your experiences are real and valid. We only ask that you respect others’ journeys and resist those feelings of judgement or criticism.

For many Indigenous Peoples, this is a very heavy time for us. Many of us are in a time of constant grieving while we are feeling our own painful emotions as well as the intergenerational pain that was inadvertently passed down to many of us. It was through the Christian Doctrine of Discovery and Terra Nullius that our Peoples were forced (violently more often than not) from the lands where Creator placed us and onto the tiny postage stamp-sized parcels of land we now call reserves.

Collectively, we are grieving the loss of our territorial homelands, the criminalization of our spiritual and cultural practices, the near extinction of our beautiful languages, the denial of our Indigenous identities, and most of all our children who have yet to come home from their unmarked graves. We remember that our collective grief is valid as is our personal grief while we move within multiple levels of various emotions today and in the days to come.

Keepers of the Water would also like to remind you that Water has many ways of being. Water has the power to help us with our healing during these emotional times we are experiencing together.

The National Indian Residential School Crisis Line provides 24-hour crisis support to former Indian Residential School students and their families toll-free at 1-866-925-4419.

First Nations, Inuit and Métis seeking immediate emotional support can contact the Hope for Wellness Help Line toll-free at 1-855-242-3310, or by online chat at hopeforwellness.ca.