Nicole Cross begins speaking at [00:16]
Nicole Cross | Noxs Ni’is Yuus is Vice President, Indigenous Health, Northern Health.
September 30 is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day.
The day honours the children who never returned home and Survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.
Learn more about National Day for Truth and Reconciliation: www.canada.ca/en/canadian-her...
Learn more about Orange Shirt Day: www.orangeshirtday.org/
SUPPORT AVAILABLE
Support is available for anyone affected by the residential school experience.
1. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.
2. The KUU-US Crisis Line Society provides a First Nations and Indigenous specific crisis line available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, toll-free from anywhere in British Columbia. The KUU-US Crisis Line can be reached toll-free at 1-800-588-8717 or online.
3. The Northern BC Crisis Line offers 24/7 support across the NH region, and can be reached at 1-888-562-1214.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Nit
My name is Nicole Cross. My traditional name is Noxs Ni’is Yuus and I belong to the Killer Whale Clan and the house of Ni’is Yuus.
I was born and raised in the Nisga’a community of Laxgalts'ap.
I am the Vice President of Indigenous Health with Northern Health.
I am incredibly grateful to be sharing this message with all of you from the unceded and traditional territories of the Lheidli T’enneh People.
I think when reflecting on reconciliation my thoughts can be summed up with three key sentiments.
The first would be a sense of mourning.
Mourning the lives that we lost, mourning the stories that will never be told, and mourning a future that would have been borne out of those lives and those stories should that history never have taken place.
My second sentiment is a sense of frustration.
Frustration with that history.
Frustration with the current state of things that continue to perpetuate harm against communities that I grew up in and I love.
Families that I love.
And a frustration with the pace of change.
I think my third sentiment would be one of responsibility.
An immense amount of responsibility for being apart of that change, for a new future.
And in that is a great deal of hope, hope that that sense of responsibility is shared by all of us, hope that that responsibility in those actions are informed by those stories, by those realities and that at the end of the day, through a lot of hard work and a lot of listening, we’re going to get to a place or true reconciliation in health care in the North.
And that, that drives my everyday in showing up to this job, in showing up to this work, is reaching that place.
And I think that those are my sentiments on reconciliation.
T’ooyaksiy niin.