Hundreds of people attended Family Day on the Halifax Waterfront, the final day of a three-day-long event hosted by the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre to celebrate Truth, Reconciliation and Treaty Day.
“Today, we’re really just trying to encourage kids to come out. Really sort of nurture sort of the educational side of things and give kids an opportunity to sort of experience a little bit of the culture if they haven’t and hopefully learn,” said Jesse Benjamin, an employee at Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre.
The day was an opportunity for children and families to make traditional Indigenous crafts and learn about Indigenous history and culture.
Eleven-year-old Alyssia Boyce said she thought the day was important.
“I feel like it’s something I am allowed to be a part in and it means a lot to me that people are recognizing it,” said Boyce.
Many volunteers were on-hand to teach children beading, colouring feathers for Dream Catchers, which will be donated to the IWK, and making seal skin necklaces.
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Nine-year-old Elliott Rhynard was excited to attend the event with her friends and family and spent time colouring and beading and listening to the local Indigenous artists.
“I really like it. I can’t understand it but I like the melody and the rhythm,” she said.
Denise John, who is also an employee at the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre, said the weekend celebrations were a huge success and finding the words to express her sentiments toward the massive turnout was difficult.
“To see the smiles on the kids, that’s all you need, and, like I said, this is why we’re doing this work is for the children, for our generation, and to honour all our residential school survivors and the children that did not come home,” she said.
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Benjamin stressed the education component of the activities was crucial because the children were able to have fun yet also learn about history. She says she believes people need to continue to educate themselves on Indigenous culture and history.
“There’s an app you can look at called ‘Native Land,’ really easy to just find out wherever you are who lives there and what territory you’re on and also a little education on the treaties and importance of those,” Benjamin said.
“Treaty Day was yesterday because that affects all of us. We’re all treaty people, everyone that lives here, and that’s important history that we all need to know.”