The 2021 Spoken Letters on this site were created by Vancouver Island University’s 4th-year students in the Bachelor of Social Work Programs’ Social Work with Indigenous Communities class (SOCW 421). These audiovisual reflections represent the student’s responses to reading the 2021 report entitled: In Plain Sight: Addressing Indigenous-specific Racism and Discrimination in B.C. Health Care, by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond.

The students also examined other reports and recent recommendations to address  this urgent social issue. Subsequently, they were encouraged to ‘take off their academic hat’, to free their voice and allow themselves to respond from both the heart and mind. The oral components and visual imagery in their Spoken Letters supported this leap.

These heartfelt responses reflect students’ deep engagement in learning, sometimes for the first time, about the painful truths and legacies linked to First Nations, Inuit and Metis specific racism in health and human services. The letters are also a manifestation of the students’ will to actively incorporate several recommendations into their future work. I applaud the students for their courage to be vulnerable and their confidence to put this snapshot of their learning from a moment in time out to the public, in an effort to join others who are working to ensure the findings from this and other related reports are implemented.

About the Spoken Letters 

The “Spoken Letters” assignment, uses an inquiry-driven methodology designed to help students reflect on real-life events and show solidarity and support for survivors through a decolonial lens.

The method grew out of a workshop at VIU on the concept of the ‘non-disposable assignment’. The process encourages students to represent knowledge in a variety of ways, encourages peer-access and review while building collaboration, community engagement and solidarity. I am grateful to the staff of Vancouver Island University’s Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning, for providing opportunities to explore the development of meaningful new pedagogical processes, such as this one. The 2021 Spoken Letters are the 4th in a series, where VIU’s social work students have engaged in such a process. -Finn Meyer Cook

How it started:

Spoken Letters 2018, began as a collaborative space designed to highlight work by students in Vancouver Island University’s (VIU) Bachelor of Social Work program in Fall 2018, to honour the experiences of residential school survivors on the eve of Orange Shirt Day. In preparation, the SOCW 421 class read and viewed residential school survivors narratives and statements from the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre Indian Residential School Legacy Project and Where Are the Children  websites. (See links below)

Students were asked to temporarily take off their academic hats, respond authentically to the experiences and narratives of the survivors, while reflecting on and sharing their own views on reconciliation. The survivors have given us their stories, this now is the students chance to let them know that they have been heard and that the sharing of their experiences matter deeply.

Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre (MDCC)

http://www.mikmaweydebert.ca/home/sharing-our-stories/indian-residential-schools-legacy-project/

Since that time, new student cohorts have grown the Spoken Letters project, addressing distinct themes each year:

2021: Indigenous specific racism in health and human services

2020: Honouring Indigenous Ways of Knowing

2019: Reflections of the MMIWG2S+ Final Report

2018:  Commemorating Residential School Survivors