By Paige Dillman, NSCC Journalism student who is interning with The Laker News for May
MILFORD: Two Indigenous students at Hants East Rural High School wanted to bring awareness to the National Day of Awareness and remembrance for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2 Spirit people.
And on May 5, with the support of the school administration, they did just that to their fellow students.
Cadence Davidson and Camden Maloney, both grade 11 students at HERH, worked together to pull off this gathering, which simply started as a passion project.
They say that they were influenced to do something after seeing more news articles and videos about young missing and murdered girls.
“It just really hit home because there is no voice to this, and there’s no representation of this voice at Hants East Rural High, and so it was our moment to bring that voice forward,” says Davidson.
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May 5 is known as Red Dress Day, which was inspired 15 years ago by Jamie Black, a Metis artist in Winnipeg.
Jamie Black created an art installation where she displayed red dresses to represent MMIWG2S+.
Davidson and Maloney have been working hard on this event for the last month. They were able to have a performance by the drum group Eastern Eagle and Jingle Dancer Shanda Nevin.
There was also a guest speaker, Dee-Ann Sack, who’s a knowledge keeper and councillor from Sipekne’katik.
As Sack did her talk, there was a slideshow that played, which showed the statistics of MMIWG2S+ and explained why this is an ongoing epidemic.
Cadence made the slides, while Camden was her emotional and physical support throughout the research phase.
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Although this is a hard day of mourning and remembering, the girls shared that there is a way for everyone, even non-Indigenous people, to help.
“Just by being there and like supporting us and like showing that their there and hearing our stories and learning them,” explained Maloney.
“As well as trying to learn more about it and what they can do to help.”
Both girls agreed that everyone should do their own research because this is a severe issue that everyone should educate themselves on.
“Look at the numbers, look at stories from your own communities because you might not think they’re there, but they are,” says Davidson.
“This is an epidemic across Canada, and it needs more voices now.”
They hope that after the gathering, students go home and think about this, investigate it, and make it a topic of conversation.
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When Davidson and Maloney approached the school, they said they were given a lot of support but made sure to keep the gathering student lead because it was important.
Both girls were extremely happy about the turnout and the support they received from the gathering.
The two hope to see this event continue at the school.
“We want this to stay an annual event and for it to get talked about year after year until we don’t have to talk about it anymore,” they explained.
