Today and every day, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) stands with Indigenous peoples and acknowledges the devastating effects that the legacy of residential schools continues to have on residential school survivors, their families and communities, and our nation as a whole.

FSWC is proud of our ongoing commitment to include Indigenous voices in all aspects of our educational programming. Through our Tour for Humanity mobile education classroom, virtual equity and diversity workshops and events like Freedom Day, we create space for students across Canada to connect with Indigenous histories, voices and identities. An ongoing partnership with Outside Looking In, an Indigenous youth organization, has resulted in important dialogue between Indigenous and Jewish youth on issues of identity, culture and belonging. This year we were privileged to include Delores Kelly, a residential school survivor, in our bi-weekly In Conversation With a Survivor speaker series.

We also recognize that this work is ongoing. Reconciliation is a long and difficult road. As mass graves of children continue to be discovered at the sites of former residential schools, we must dig deeper into this history, both literally and figuratively.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the Indigenous peoples of all the lands we are on. From coast to coast to coast, we acknowledge the ancestral lands and territories of all the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people who call this land home.