February 20, 2014
National Commemorative Marker Project
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN), in partnership with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and in association with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Métis National Council, has been mandated to support communities to undertake commemoration activities related to their experiences with residential schools. As such, we are working with a group of Indigenous artists from across Canada to design and fabricate commemorative markers for each residential school recognized under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA).
We encourage organizations who have not already received commemoration funding to immediately contact us to apply for a marker and a one time $6500 grant to fund a commemoration event in your community. In order to receive the grant, you will need to hold a commemorative event before March 31, 2014. There is also a marker project website that includes details on previous Commemoration Fund activities, details on each residential school, and a place for you to create and manage your community’s own virtual commemoration page.
We encourage organizations who have not already received commemoration funding to immediately contact us to apply for a marker and a one time $6500 grant to fund a commemoration event in your community. In order to receive the grant, you will need to hold a commemorative event before March 31, 2014. There is also a marker project website that includes details on previous Commemoration Fund activities, details on each residential school, and a place for you to create and manage your community’s own virtual commemoration page.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUR
COMMEMORATIVE EVENT
Although you can organize whatever type of
commemorative event that works for your community
(a feast, an outing, or a community dialogue), we
suggest that you use it to:
• inform your community of the marker project and to
let them know a marker is coming;
• discuss where it will be placed/housed, and when it
will be installed and unveiled; and
• discuss how you will use your online
commemoration page.
The grant is to support Survivors, their families, and
community members to participate in commemoration.
Part of that involves thinking about how Survivors want
their experiences remembered both in the community
and among the larger public.
ABOUT THE MARKER
The marker will be a small monument that is also a
container where you can put stories, photographs, and
anything else that is meaningful to you and reflects
your experiences of residential school. The marker will
belong to your community and you can choose to
install it permanently in your community or to install it
on the site of the residential school it corresponds to. If
you intend to place it on the former school site, the AFN
can assist you by providing a legal agreement template
(easement) with which you can approach the current
property owner.
