City of Calgary staff will gather at the steps of the downtown municipal building at noon on Wednesday to partake in a moment of silence in honour of Orange Shirt Day.
Orange Shirt Day is held annually on Sept. 30 as a way to acknowledge the experiences of First Nations, Metis and Inuit children in residential schools.
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It is named in memory of a piece of clothing one First Nations girl in British Columbia had taken away from her on her first day at a residential school in 1973.
The moment of silence will serve as a chance for City of Calgary staffers and members of the Indigenous Relations Office to remember the more than 150,000 Indigenous children forced into residential schools, and the thousands of children who died.
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“Reconciliation can only happen when the truth is shared, listened to and learned from,” Harold Horsefall from the Indigenous Relations Office said in a news release.
The City of Calgary will release a video to mark the occasion at 1 p.m. via its YouTube channel.
⏰ REMINDER: Today is Orange Shirt Day.
This is an opportunity to continue the conversation of reconciliation and hope for generations of children to come.
Join us at 1pm to for a discussion on the history of Orange Shirt Day and reconciliation.https://t.co/2bK4TlsvvC
— City of Calgary (@cityofcalgary) September 30, 2020
– With files from The Canadian Press