NIPAWIN — A new group in Nipawin is trying to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents.
Reconciliation Nipawin held its debut event, a blanket exercise designed to help teach 500 years of history in three hours.
“It’s really about sharing history that really wasn’t available in textbooks,” said Sharon Meyer, who facilitated the workshop. “The whole blanket exercise makes history real for them. It’s a renewed history of what was not taught in schools 10, 20 years ago.”
Using blankets laid out on the floor to represent the lands of the North American continent – Turtle Island – available to Indigenous peoples, the participants of the workshop learned how Indigenous people were affected by non-Indigenous people, whether it was by trade, violence, disease, reservations, and murdered and missing women.
There’s a part where participants, assigned to holding children, have them taken away to represent the effect of residential schools.
“There’s a little re-enactment in there and that always moves people because it makes them feel that now that they have their own children, how could history have done that to people, take the children away,” said Meyer, who works for the North East School Division as a First Nations education consultant.
Rhonda Teichreb, a member of Reconciliation Nipawin, said the group was formed from discussions out of Nipawin’s interagency group, which includes groups like health organizations, education organizations, KidsFirst, the town, Cumberland College and the RCMP. During a strategic planning event last year, reconciliation was a popular focus.
From there, a couple of people would meet to focus on reconciliation.
“We’d meet at Tim Hortons, have a coffee and invite others to come and over time it’s grown into a group of eight or 10 of us that come together and talk about what reconciliation might mean for our community,” Teichreb said.
Teichreb said the group recognizes that reconciliation is already happening in Nipawin, with or without them.
“Our hope is to stretch out that thinking and support our community to expand their understanding of truth and reconciliation, and also just to acknowledge and be grateful for what already is happening.”
As for the group’s next steps, Teichreb said they plan to march in the upcoming parade, engage with local First Nations, engage with youth and continue to offer educational opportunities for those interested. They plan to hold another blanket exercise in the fall.
