A ‘quiet recognition’ of the Indigenous children whose remains were recently uncovered in Kamploops will be held in Parksville on Monday, May 31.
Deb Tardiff, communications manager for the city, wrote in a release that “following the discovery of the bodies of 215 Indigenous children at a former Kamloops residential school on Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation territory, flags at the Parksville Civic and Technology Centre were lowered to half-mast. To honour the children whose lives were tragically taken at the former school and the families and communities who are mourning.”
To honour the lives of these children, Tardiff wrote that a memorial has been arranged at the Cenotaph on Craig Street, adjacent to the Parksville Civic and Technology Centre.
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“A simple, quiet recognition will be held at 3 p.m. today, May 31. We encourage people to visit the memorial over the next few days, to pay respect for the lives lost, reflect on this horrific discovery, and the healing that is so very important.”
Along with the flags being lowered at the civic and technology centre, the evening lights will glow orange until June 9.
The Kamloops residential school operated between 1890 and 1969. The federal government took over the facility’s operation from the Catholic Church and ran it as a day school until it closed in 1978. Survivors have been speaking up about life at the school, and the disappearance of children while they lived there.
— NEWS Staff, submitted