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Harm Reduction and Sexual Health | Population Health
Orange Hearts - Forever In Our Hearts
June 16, 2021
Launching the Orange Heart Memorial for the 215 Indigenous children – “Forever in Our Hearts” on National Aboriginal Day June 21, 2021
The North Okanagan Friendship Center Society offers our sincere and heartfelt condolences to individual, families, and communities of the 215 children recently found on the site of the Kamloops Residential School. We extend our condolences to all of those impacted by the Canadian Indian residential school and day school systems.
“The large-scale discovery is extremely disturbing and shocking to all of us,” NOFCS Executive Director. We honor the work of those whose efforts were successful in finding our Indigenous children. We respect and uphold the stories from the survivors who told us that there were more of their friends, family members, and school mates to be found. These stories were conveyed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but their stories fell on deaf ears until the discovery of the mass burial of 215 Indigenous children.
On behalf of the North Okanagan Friendship Center Society, we want to acknowledge the personal and collective grief that we, as Indigenous peoples, are dealing with in our own way through cultural ways and supporting one another.
The sad truth is that this is not just a chapter of Canadian history, it is ongoing through the systemic removal of our Indigenous infants, children, and youth from our communities. The terrible legacy of Indian residential schools permeates our everyday life as we help 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation survivors of a system that took away the Indian children from their families” cultural life lifestyle to a foreign system that served to abuse, denigrate, and strip our Indian children of their innocent lives.
On June 21, 2021, the North Okanagan Friendship Center Society is launching a fundraiser, “Orange Hearts” for a memorial bench and mural to honor the Indigenous children and families and to expand our services to infants, children, youth, and their families. NOFCS is working on plans to build an Indigenous Childcare facility, and they are seeking a suitable site in Greater Vernon.
During this time of covid19 pandemic, NOFCS has strived to continue our Outreach Programs to keep our families safe, strong, and supported. NOFCS continues to be short staffed, yet fully committed to offering our outreach services as they are vital.
On National Aboriginal Day, our main office at 2904-29th Street will be open for the public to drop by to visit, and to write a message on Orange Heart that will be displayed in our courtyard and delivered to Kamloops, BC where ongoing ceremonies are occurring.
Support resources available:
National Indian Residential School Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Indian Residential Schools Survivors Society: 1-800-721-0066
Indian Residential Schools Program (First Nations Health Authority)
The North Okanagan Friendship Center Society Board engaged Sylix artist Sheldon P Louis to design a logo that would represent the Four Food Chiefs of the Okanagan People. The Four Food Chiefs are placed in four quadrants in the sphere surround the traditional pit house or winter dwelling of the Okanagan People with a wonderful fire pit adding warmth.
The Friendship Centre is the Interior Salish designed pit house that is a place of safety, support and welcoming for all people in need of help. The artist utilized the pictograph design of the Interior Salish Peoples to depict The Four Food Chiefs: bear, as represented by the bear paw, salmon as depicted in the salmon skeleton, saskatoon berry as the berry in full bloom, and bitterroot as the plant with life giving roots. The blue circle represents life, and water as a key element in sustaining all life. Without water, we cannot exist. The circle also represents the circle of life and shows that we are all connected and interconnected in the world.
We acknowledge the Syilx peoples of the Okanagan Nation, the traditional keepers of this land, for allowing us to work, play, and reside on their traditional and unceded territory. We honour our relationship with the Okanagan People by utilizing their chaptik story about how food was given, and how songs were given to the Okanagan people, and how giving and helping people is still taught by Okanagan People.
In the spirit of the helping others, we are taught to respect the smallest, weakest person for what they can contribute. This is a main teaching of why we give thanks and honour to what is given to us, to what is shared with us. It is through the understanding and embodiment of the chaptik story of the Four Food Chiefs as depicted in our logo.
