Survivor offers advice on how to honour National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

As Canada prepares to recognize the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Thursday, the desire to hear from residential school survivors has soared across the country.

As Canada prepares to recognize the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Thursday, Shingoose, who is affectionately known as Gramma Shingoose, says the desire to hear from survivors has soared across the country.

"This year, 2021, is a year of truth for us survivors," Shingoose said in an interview.

When the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced the grim discovery of what are believed to be the 215 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., Canadians had to face the horrific realities Indigenous children and youth had to live with while being forced to attend the schools.

Stories of unmarked burial grounds were featured in a report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2015, but the events of this summer sparked a national conversation unlike anything before.