Healing centres will fight effects of residential schools

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Approximately $1 million will be spent over the next three years on a project designed to help heal Manitoba Natives who attended residential school.

Two healing resource centres are in the works to combat the devastating effects 12 major residential schools had on the lives of thousands of Aboriginal people.

The proposal is the brain-child of the Manitoba Joint Committee On Residential Schools, a group comprised of representatives from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Indigenous Women's Collective, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, and the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches.

The centre will be located in Winnipeg and Northern Manitoba, and will provide referral services for individuals and groups in need of counselling or other healing services. Each will assist in advocacy, planning and the development of other First Nations' programs related to residential schools.

An evaluation of the project will be done at the end of this first phase to determine its effectiveness.

Increased attention has been drawn to the legacy of abuse and spiritual harm left by residential schools, and particularly the mark they left on Aboriginal people.

In 1990, AMC Grand Chief Phil Fontaine publicly disclosed he was abused while a student at the Fort Alexander Residential School. His and the testimonies of other students led to a clear understanding that while the era of residential schools had officially ended, their effects continue to haunt the Native community today and into the future, reads the proposal.

Soon after the grand chief's disclosure the AMC met with the Bishop's Advisory Committee of the Roman Catholic Church. Discussion centred around a government-church response to healing victims of abuse. The scope was latter expanded to include the other churches and resulted in a joint working committee of all participants.

This committee was responsible for developing a provincial approach to attending to the healing needs of former residential school students.

The Catholic Church quit the committee by the fall of 1993, accusing the AMC of dominating the group's agenda and creating an atmosphere of disrespect towards the Catholic Church,

Fontaine accused the Bishop's advisory group of disrupting and obstructing the working group's progress.

"The key departure point appears to be who controls the process of healing and our proposition is very simple," Fontaine said in a radio interview at the time. "It has to be controlled by First Nations people with the support of the people that acted as agents for government in this very painful experience."

The healing centre proposal is the result of the remaining members' efforts.

The residential school program was undertaken by four major churches, under the policies and with the financial support of the federal government.

Residential schools began operating in the 1880s and by 1909 there were 77 in operation across Canada. The last of the church-run residential schools closed their doors in the 1970s.

In Manitoba, of the 12 schools that operated for an extended period of time, six were operated by the Roman Catholic Church, two by the Anglican Church, three by the United Church and one by the Presbyterian Church.