Residential school survivor speaks out on Orange Shirt Day

At 5 years old, Steve Sxwithul’txw was taken to a residential school off Vancouver Island. 50 years later, his 11-year-old daughter wants to raise awareness about the impact of these institutions on indigenous people. Isabelle Raghem reports.

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – At just five years old, Steve Sxwithul’txw was ripped from his home and taken to Kuper Island residential school, which was located off Vancouver Island.

“For me, it was a story of loneliness and not understanding why I was in this big concrete island and couldn’t see anyone. I couldn’t see my family, it’s scarred myself throughout my lifetime,” he says.

He and his sisters were among an estimated 150-thousand Indigenous children separated from their families and forced into the government-funded and church-run residential schools.

“I was taught back in my time not to be proud, to be ashamed that I was labelled as an ‘Indian’ and that we come from a shameful background which is far from the truth,” Sxwithul’txw says.

RELATED: Orange Shirt Day recognizes every child matters, fights to end racism

50 years later, his 11-year-old daughter wants to make sure every Canadian knows and remembers what happened.

“Why would someone want to do this to a child, it just doesn’t make sense,” Haley Paekau says.

This year, Haley has raised $5,000 by selling shirts on Orange Shirt Day.
She’s been fundraising for the last three years, with the sixth-grader saying it’s her way to lend her voice to the cause.

“If we know about the past we can try to make it better in the future. That residential school is something that happened and that Orange Shirt Day is a time to try to fix that, and a journey of reconciliation,” she says.

RELATED: The Mohawk Institute: A first look at the former residential school, preserved to tell its history

Her father, Steve, says it’s Haley’s own decision to fundraise each year.

“We always let her know you don’t have to do this it’s a big undertaking and before I finish my sentence she says no dad we’re doing it again,” he says.

The annual day began in 2013 to spark conversations around the impacts of residential schools and to continue the conversation around reconciliation.

Phyllis Webstad is the Founder of Orange Shirt Day and shares the inspiration around the orange shirts.

“When I just turned six in July 1973, I got a bright orange shirt for my first day of school and when I got there, my shirt went away and I don’t have a memory of ever wearing it again,” Webstad says. “Truth comes before reconciliation. I’ve heard a lot of people say that and what’s happening today with truth-telling that started is a lot of truth telling and sharing what happened to us in those schools.”

While most residential schools were shut down by the mid-1970s, the last one closed in 1996.

As part of his healing journey, Steve Sxwithul’txw recently returned to the land where the school once stood.

“The people who set this brick set the foundations for something they had no idea they were doing,” he says.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today