Indigenous Strengths Mural Display: An Invitation to Participate
Indigenous Strengths Mural Display: How You Can Participate in National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (NDTR)
On September 30, we observe the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (NDTR). This day honors the Survivors of residential schools, their families, and communities, and remembers the children who never returned home.
Reconciliation cannot only be about remembering the harms—it must also be about looking forward. To move into a more just future, we can draw on Indigenous strengths.
Why Highlight Indigenous Strengths?
Too often, conversations about Indigenous Peoples (First Nation, Métis, and Inuit) at Queen’s and across Turtle Island (Noth America) focus on deficits—on challenges or what needs to be “fixed.” This deficit lens hides a much larger truth: Indigenous Peoples have flourished here for thousands upon thousands of years.
Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island have lived through ways of being that create balance with the land, waters, spirits, and each other. These strengths are not only teachings from the past—they continue to be carried and lived today. Deep spiritual and cultural knowledge grounds people in their original instructions for living in a good way. Connection to the land and to Mother Earth sustains life while reminding us of our responsibilities to nurture the world that nurtures us. Community values guide collective responsibility, where love and care for one another ensure the wellbeing of all. These strengths have always existed, and despite colonization and its ongoing impacts, they remain alive, practiced, and carried forward with resilience by Indigenous peoples today.
In our commitment to truth and reconciliation, it is all our responsibility to recognize and support these strengths of Indigenous Peoples.
The Mural Display
We invite you to join us on September 26 and 29 (11 AM–3 PM, ARC Atrium) to share your reflections on “What makes Indigenous Peoples strong?”. Your responses will help shape a collaborative mural highlighting four domains of Indigenous strengths: identity, community connection, culture and tradition, and relationships with the land and waters. The finished mural will be permanently displayed in the ARC, representing student voices on truth and reconciliation.
This mural is a collaboration between the AMS Social Issues Commission (SIC) Indigenous Initiatives and BIPOC Talk.
An Invitation to Reflect
I invite all students to really reflect on the strengths of Indigenous peoples and consider participating in the mural. Because of the lasting impacts of colonization, Indigenous strengths often go unrecognized in our daily lives, even though they surround us. By taking time to see and honor these strengths, you can be part of a decolonizing effort on campus.
I ask that anyone reading this considers the depth of Indigenous strengths and knowledge—and then go one step further in your own allyship; share what you learn. Carry Indigenous teachings into your own spaces, classrooms, and communities. In doing so, you help shift the narrative to one that reflects the truth; that Indigenous Peoples are strong and resilient, and they always have been.
Maarsii for your time and contribution,
Cameron Hare
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