<
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2022/4/27/a-warrior-for-indigenous-women-and-girls>
"As the sun set over Rome, Lorelei Williams calmly observed the steady stream
of tourists who flocked into the Colosseum, where warriors once fought to the
death before tens of thousands of spectators.
Wrapped in a blood-red silk cape and with her black hair neatly braided, she
was in Italy to witness a historic event - one she had come all the way from
Canada to be part of.
Lorelei is Salish/Coast Salish from the Skatin Nations/Sts’Ailes, near
Vancouver, British Columbia. When a delegation of First Nations, Inuit and
Metis representatives were invited to Rome to meet with Pope Francis, Lorelei
knew she had to be there, too. So she took time off work and paid for the trip
herself. For Lorelei, it was a way to honour her late parents.
The delegates were there to ask the pope to apologise for the Catholic Church’s
role in Canada’s residential schools - the federally funded, church-run
institutions that operated from the late 1800s until 1996 with the goal of
forcibly assimilating Indigenous children.
More than 150,000 Indigenous children from across Canada were torn from their
families and communities and forced to attend the schools where physical,
sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse was rife.
Lorelei’s parents were among them."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
