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Saskatoon begins reconciliation week with flag raising, UNDRIP adoption

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The City of Saskatoon marked the week leading up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by unveiling an awareness campaign and a new flag outside city hall Monday.

As part of the Orange Banner Project, city workers installed roughly 250 banners with messages of reconciliation on light poles across the city over the weekend.

Some of the banners show how many people attended residential schools, others show messages of support and some have photos of survivors featured on them.

“It tells a story of who we are as a community and invites everyone into a time of reflection and consideration of what role we can play in Truth and Reconciliation,” Mayor Charlie Clark said of the public display.

“It's also an opportunity for survivors to know that we hear and value and understand that what happened to them was wrong.”

Saskatoon Tribal Council Chief Mark Arcand said he still faces daily acts of racism, but having a week-long campaign to raise awareness about reconciliation and the impacts of residential schools will only improve circumstances in the future.

“We can make it better for the next generation to come,” Arcand said. “If you talk to any survivor, they want it to be better for the next generation that comes -- the children, so they don't have to go through what our survivors went through.”

The Survivors’ Flag unveiled at Civic Square outside city hall will be on display until Oct. 3.

The flag, designed in part by residential school survivors from across the country, was meant as an expression of remembrance.

Using family, children, a cedar branch, cosmic symbols, an eagle feather, a Métis sash and an Inuksuit, the flag has profound meaning to those who were consulted for its design.

“On the flag, there is an incomplete circle that surrounds this image much in the same way that there are still many truths to be told before we come close to understanding the impact residential schools had on survivors, communities, and the entire nation,” Residential school survivor Eugene Arcand said.

“And there is a story yet to be told.”

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