Mamidosewin Centre encourages college community to Have a Heart

Mamidosewin Centre held Have a Heart Day on Valentine’s Day, an event designed to bring awareness to the systemic racism faced by Indigenous people in Canada, specifically in the foster care system.

Despite Indigenous children being only seven per cent of Canada’s youth population, they make up 53.8 per cent of the children in foster care, according to Statistics Canada.

Summer Wabasse is an Indigenous woman of Webequie First Nation and one of the organizers behind Have a Heart Day. Wabasse wanted to bring awareness to First Nations youth being over-represented in care.

“Have a Heart Day is a day to advocate for and also spread awareness of the inequalities faced by First Nations children and families. So, we’re here to hopefully raise awareness amongst the college of these gaps and barriers,” said Wabasse.

The over-representation of Indigenous children in foster care has been happening since the 1960s, through an event called the Sixties Scoop. Indigenous children born around this time were removed from their families by social workers, usually without reason and often times without even informing the parents. The children were then placed into foster care or the care of a non-Indigenous family.

“It’s more about the government-specific responsibilities and the systemic discrimination against First Nations people,” said Wabbase.

“So, First Nations child and family services have been given less money, and the resources on reserves have been chronically underfunded. So, when you create all of these systemic barriers and then add intergenerational trauma to the mix, and a lot of racism, we end up being vastly overrepresented in care.”

Systemic racism against Indigenous people has been around for a long time, starting with the Indian Act in 1876, and the residential school systems. The Sixties Scoop created a new problem amongst Indigenous people that still persists today in the way Indigenous youth are overrepresented in foster care.

Have a Heart Day started on Feb. 14, 2012. The initiative was created to bring awareness to Indigenous children in foster care, and to advocate for Indigenous rights, and to give Indigenous children the chance to grow up safely at home instead of in the foster system. The event is mainly recognized by sending letters to members of Parliament, making snow bears (bears often symbolize strength, wisdom, and leadership in Indigenous cultures) and making cookies to spread awareness.

At Algonquin College, students wrote on hearts, like “I love you” translated into many different Indigenous languages, and then the paper hearts were taped to a wall.

“As an employee here, I know a lot of our students are former children in care, and as a person, I have a lot of friends who grew up in care, and I know a lot of people that are affected,” said Wabasse.

“It hits very close to home.”