NEWS RELEASE
HURONIA REGIONAL CENTRE
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TORONTO – The history of abuse at Ontario institutions for persons with intellectual disabilities and the ongoing struggles and discrimination they experience comes to life in three new web-based educational initiatives that feature stories from institutional survivors, younger generations of persons with intellectual disabilities, and families who have experienced significant harm first-hand.
Survivors know the terrible impact of being separated from their families and communities, locked up and forgotten in institutions. Experiences of abuse, neglect and violence were common. They believe that people need to know the truth of what happened to them not only for their ongoing healing, but also because these harms are still happening to younger generations of persons with intellectual disabilities today. We have failed to learn from the mistakes of the past.
Survivors and younger generations want their stories told. They want to educate everyone about their past and present realities in order to change systems and attitudes to better support people to live the lives they want to live.
The launch of these initiatives coincides with the United Nations’ International Day of People with Disabilities on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020.
There are three projects:
Remember Every Name (remembereveryname.ca) is led by survivors of the Huronia Regional Centre in Orillia. This initiative is committed to ensuring that people locally and nationally remember the history of eugenics and abuse that took place at Huronia. The objective is to share their difficult and traumatic stories and memorialize their experiences, while advocating for measures that should be taken to best honour the need for healing.
DiStory (distory.ca) focuses on institutional survivors and a younger generation of self-advocates who, through inclusive collaboration and storytelling, explore disability justice and how people’s rights have been compromised and lives impacted, both in the past and present, by systems that were intended to support them. DiStory is also developing curriculum materials for post-secondary students, including a series of learning modules, digital stories, performance and other arts-based materials.
Exclusion to Belonging (exclusiontobelonging.ca) houses three web-based projects developed by L’Arche Toronto. Listen to My Story is a collection of personal stories of institutional life by those who lived there and their families.
Birds Make Me Think About Freedom is a multi-media meditation on interdependence, inclusion, transformation and imagination, based on the testimonies of persons who were institutionalized, their families and friends. Healing and Belonging explores creative ways to listen to and support institutional survivors who have complex needs and limited means of communicating.
Funding for Investing in Justice
In December 2013, the Ontario government issued a public apology to the people of Ontario who were failed by a model of institutional care for persons with intellectual disabilities.
The apology was mandated in the $35-million settlement of the class action lawsuit brought by survivors of the Huronia, Rideau and Southwest Regional Centres. However, because there was a financial settlement, there was no trial where the stories of survivors and their families could be heard.
Unlike the Indian Residential Schools settlement mandated by the federal government and the accompanying Truth and Reconciliation process, survivors of institutions have not had a public forum where they could tell their stories and educate the public about what happened to them.
The process to make a claim was inaccessible to many survivors who did not have the support to communicate what happened to them-- and for some, too painful.
Millions of dollars from the settlement did not reach former residents or their families. The remaining funds were mandated to benefit persons with intellectual disabilities and their families. These projects are among those supported by these funds, named “Investing in Justice” by survivors and their allies.
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"difficult" - Google News
November 29, 2020 at 10:00PM
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New websites to share 'difficult and traumatic' survivor stories - OrilliaMatters
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