Cowessess First Nation chief leads through reckoning to reach healing
Global News
“I would like to leave my kids knowing that their father is making a difference, so when they get to my age they can continue the progress,” Chief Cadmus Delorme said.
Chief Cadmus Delorme is leading Cowessess First Nation through a challenging time of reckoning and healing, all while navigating a path to self-governance.
The first nation is located nearly 200 kilometres east of Regina, in southern Saskatchewan.
In June, Delorme announced to Canada — and the world — the discovery of at least 751 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School site, on Cowessess land.
“The truth is validation to Indigenous people of the pain, the frustration, the continuous fight it feels with colonization,” Delorme said.
“We have one of two options right now: to address the truth, accept the truth, then move to reconciliation, or be ignorant to the reality and make our children figure it out. And I am one to not wait for our children to figure it out.”
To help with the difficult work ahead, the first nation hired a grandmother from Cowessess, Barb Lavallee, to lead the gravesite rejuvenation.
“We cut it into two approaches: one of them is research and one of them is technical. The technical is verifying the 751 hits, or unmarked graves, as we say,” said Delorme, adding the other focus is research and putting names to the unmarked graves.
“Splitting it into two has made the process a lot smoother, and it has allowed us to build a team that is here for the long haul.”
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