A project to map the sites of former residential schools across Canada needs volunteers to make it a reality.
The effort is a partnership involving the Assembly of First Nations and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
AFN Policy Analyst Kathy Kettler says the goal is to erect commemorative markers for each of the schools, but that will mean getting permission from landowners.
“We need to identify who are the property owners for each of the 139 Indian Residential Schools in order to be able to do title searches, in order to be able to put the markers on the locations of the residential schools”.
Kettler adds partnerships have been established with a number of universities, but a large number of volunteers will be needed to complete the project.
“We have also put the call out as an event for National GIS Day for people to come forward and identify whether or not they would like to support the project by going out and doing a site visit and taking GPS coordinates, as well as taking photos of the property.”
Kettler says, until now, no organization has mapped the entire network of residential schools across the country.
For interested volunteers, more information is available at the AFN website and the Facebook page “National Commemorative Marker Project”.