School children across Canada will today be remembering the generations of children who attended Indian Residential Schools. Indian Residential schools operated in Canada between 1870s and the 1990s. The last Indian residential school was closed in 1996. Children between the ages 4-16 attended Indian residential schools. It is estimated that over 150,000 Indian, Inuit and Metis children attended these schools. 

The practice of forcing young children to these homes ended a little over twenty years ago, but since 2003, schools have been signing up to a movement inspired but the shiny orange shirt that Phyllis Webstad wore when she entered St. Joseph Mission near Williams Lake, B.C in 1967.

A lot of atrocious things happened to the young people who were forcibly incarcerated. Many of the children(now adults) recall feelings of worthlessness, deprivation and isolation.

Phyllis was stripped of her clothing and she never saw the shirt again. It was only when former students across Canada sued the government and churches did the truth about the horror of the residential schools became known. In 2009, the Canadian Government launched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) which helped people understand the ‘cultural repression, abuse of all kinds, forcible incarceration and even preventable deaths’ which happened in these schools.