Want to stand in solidarity with Canada’s Indigenous Peoples?
What is the story of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples?
The Blanket Exercise: A Story of Canada’s Indigenous Peoples
3:00 – 4:30 pm Thurs Sept 29
King’s College Circle, northwest corner
Please register by at: multi.faith@utoronto.ca
The Blanket Exercise is an interactive learning experience that teaches the Indigenous rights history we’re rarely taught. Developed in response to the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples—which recommended education on Canadian-Indigenous history as one of the key steps to reconciliation, the Blanket Exercise covers over 500 years of history in a one and a half hour participatory workshop.
Blanket Exercise participants take on the roles of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Standing on blankets that represent the land, students will walk through pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. Participants are drawn into the experience by reading scrolls and carrying cards which ultimately determine their outcomes. By engaging on an emotional and intellectual level, the Blanket Exercise effectively educates and increases empathy. The exercise is followed by a debriefing session in which participants have the opportunity to discuss the experience as a group.
Andrew Wesley, an Elder with First Nations House will be facilitating the opening smudge.
In case of rain the event will be held in room 319, Emmanuel College at Victoria College, 73 Queen’s Park Circle East.