09/30/2026
Every Child Matters 🧡 September 30 marks Orange Shirt Day and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Both days of recognition—one Indigenous-led and the other established by the federal government—call for remembrance, reflection, and action around the history and devastating legacy of residential schools on Indigenous Peoples and communities.
Orange Shirt Day, launched in 2013, centres the childhood experience of survivor Phyllis Webstad to convey the profound and lasting damage that Canadian residential schools inflicted upon Indigenous children, their families, and their communities.
The Canadian government created the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in 2021 to fulfill Call to Action #80 of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015), which identified the need to maintain public memory of Canada’s residential schools as part of the reconciliation process.
🧡 This post’s illustration is an award-winning orange shirt design by MJ Singleton, an Ojibwe, two-spirit student from Migisi Sahgaigan First Nation who is studying at UTM
🧡 Their design, titled noojimo’iwe, emphasizes the importance of healing the intergenerational trauma of residential schools by supporting and loving those around you. It portrays a mother holding hands and walking forward with her two children. Above them is a bright sun with contour lines connecting to a floral pattern and designs representing all living things.🧡
