Groundbreaking videos showcase stories of Sixties Scoop survivors
The Sixties Scoop Network released 12 groundbreaking in-depth video interviews with Sixties Scoop survivors on National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21, 2023). The videos are part of its In our own Words: Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora project, funded by the Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation. KAIROS collaborated with the Sixties Scoop Network to help secure this funding for this important initiative.
The videos visualise the displacement of survivors from their families and nations into non-Indigenous adoptive and foster homes across Canada and the globe. They are available for viewing on the Sixties Scoop Network’s GIS mapping platform.
“The trafficking of Indigenous children through the child welfare policies known as the 60s scoop caused tremendous harm, yet Canada has swept us under the rug without acknowledgement or apology,” says Colleen Hele Cardinal, Sixties Scoop Network Director. “These videos are only the beginning – we hope these Sixties Scoop survivors’ stories create awareness in the hearts and minds of all Canadians and move them to support us as we heal and strive for justice, recognition and reconciliation.”
The videos are produced by Listuguj Mik’maw filmmaker, konnected.tv co-founder and Canadian Screen Award nominee Steve Martin.
In March, the Sixties Scoop Network brought ten international and interprovincial survivors to Ottawa to document their experiences. The project features interviews with Lew Jobs, Sandra Relling and Marni Hope of the Sixties Scoop Indigenous Society of Alberta; award-winning producer Kim Wheeler; Dakota writer and speaker Barbara Bad Elk and her brother Jack Martin; University of Toronto professor Dr. Karyn Recollet, Minneapolis-based Métis activist Jim Rosenau, Dan Milner Atkinson, and Spain-based publisher Daniel Nathan Frost.
Jennifer Podemski, Anishnabe/Ashkenazi, award-winning showrunner and co-creator of Little Bird and founder/CEO of the Shine Network Institute and Red Cloud Studios Inc, states: “Having created a TV series about a survivor of the 60’s Scoop and telling that story, I am enraged by how this has been ignored by Canada and Canadians. This campaign is so moving and beautiful and a true testament to survival and Indigenous healing and love.”
In Our Own Words works to reconnect the relations severed by Canada and its provinces and is a powerful tool for survivors to find family, connect with one another, and have their voices heard on their own terms. The data it generates provides an unprecedented visualisation of how Canada’s colonial child welfare system displaced more than 22,500 Indigenous children from the 1950s to the 1990s. Beginning June 22, the Sixties Scoop Network will release two videos from the series daily until Tuesday June 27.
