Today, you wear your Orange Shirt. What will you do tomorrow?

Every September 30, orange shirts appear across the country. We wear them to honour Survivors of residential schools, to remember the children who never returned home and to recognize the families and communities who continue to live with the impacts of the residential school system. Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ask us to remember. But they must also ask something more of us: Today, you wear your orange shirt. What will you do tomorrow? 

Reconciliation cannot begin and end on September 30. When the orange shirts are folded and put away, the truths they represent remain. Survivors continue to carry their stories. Families continue to experience the intergenerational impacts of residential schools. Communities continue the work of reclaiming languages, cultures, ceremonies, kinship systems and ways of knowing that colonial policies attempted to erase. 

And Indigenous Peoples continue to demonstrate something that residential schools could not take away: strength, resistance, love, knowledge and connection to culture, community and the land. 

Truth requires us to listen 

For generations, Indigenous Peoples have been telling the truth about residential schools. Survivors carried these truths long before Canada was prepared to listen. Reconciliation requires more than learning about Indigenous Peoples from a distance. It requires making space for Indigenous Peoples to tell our own stories, in our own voices. 

That means listening to Survivors, reading Indigenous authors and learning from Indigenous educators, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, artists, filmmakers and storytellers. It also means recognizing that Indigenous stories are not only stories of trauma. They are stories of survival and resurgence. They are stories of families reconnecting, languages being reclaimed, ceremonies continuing, children learning from Elders and communities carrying knowledge forward to another generation. 

From listening to action 

Listening is important, but reconciliation cannot stop at listening. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave Canada 94 Calls to Action. These Calls to Action provide a path toward addressing the ongoing legacy of residential schools and advancing reconciliation across education, health, justice, child welfare, language, culture and many other areas of Canadian society. 

Each of us can ask ourselves where we fit within that work. What truths do I still need to learn? Whose voices am I listening to? What assumptions do I need to challenge? How am I supporting Indigenous-led organizations, artists, businesses and initiatives? What conversations am I willing to have in my family, workplace, school, congregation or community? And perhaps most importantly, what am I willing to carry forward when September 30 is over? 

Listen to Indigenous voices 

This year, Kairos invites you to go beyond simply reading another statement about reconciliation. We invite you to listen. 

We have created Listen to Indigenous Voices: An Interactive Digital Library for Truth, Learning & Reconciliation. Inside the library, you can explore Survivor stories and testimony, read resources centred on Survivors and children, listen to Indigenous voices, watch films and conversations, learn more about residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action and connect with Indigenous-led organizations, artists and creators. 

The purpose of this library is not for Kairos to speak on behalf of Indigenous Peoples. It is to help create space for Indigenous Peoples to speak for themselves. 

Explore the library. Click something you have never encountered before. Listen to a Survivor. Read a story. Watch a film. Learn about the residential school that operated closest to your community. Read the Calls to Action. Then ask yourself what comes next. 

What Will You Carry Forward? 

At the end of the library, we invite you to make a commitment: Beyond September 30, I commit to… 

Maybe you will commit to continuing your learning, supporting Indigenous-led organizations, reading more Indigenous authors, challenging racism and misinformation when you encounter it or bringing these conversations into your workplace, classroom, congregation or home. The commitment does not have to be enormous, but it should not end after September 30. 

Reconciliation is not  simply a shirt that we wear for one day. It is something we must continually choose to practise through our relationships, our institutions and our actions. 

Today, wear your orange shirt. Remember the children. Honour Survivors. Listen to Indigenous voices. And when you wake up tomorrow, ask yourself: What will I do today to carry reconciliation forward? 

Every Child Matters today, tomorrow and every day. 

By Brandi Bilodeau, Indigenous Rights Coordinator