Filmmaker Promotes Residential School Awareness
Friday, February 08, 2008 at 15:14
A prominent Aboriginal film producer who dedicates her life to teaching the general public about what happened in residential schools presented two of her films in Saskatoon yesterday.
Lisa Meeches has interviewed more than 600 residential school survivors.
She says every problem in the Aboriginal community is related to residential schools — and points to the recent tragedy on the Yellow Quill First Nation.
During yesterday’s session, she asked: “Did anyone ever ask that grandmother if she went to residential school, or if her son was affected by that? Did any media outlet ever ask that question? Probably not, but I guarantee that it had something to do with it. Those are the questions we fail to ask because we’re so quick to judge.”
Meeches says it was only after her father died that she found out he attended a residential school.
She says she vowed she would spend the rest of her life educating people, in order to promote understanding and racial harmony.