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Supporting Survivors and Descendants in healing, wellness, education, language, culture, and heritage.

The Residential School Day Scholars Class Action Settlement is for Day Scholars who attended an Indian Residential School but did not sleep there at night between the years of 1920-1974 (depending on the school).


History

In 2012, members of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and shíshálh Nation led by Chief Shane Gottfriedson and Chief Garry Feschuk launched a national class action lawsuit for day scholars who were left out of the original Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement from 2006. Day Scholars, survivors who were compelled to attend institutions during the day but returned home at night, were excluded from the 2006 residential school settlement.

The Parties agreed to settle the claims of the Survivor Class and the Descendant Class (“Survivors”, “Descendants”) in the Gottfriedson v. AGC proceeding. Under the Settlement Agreement, the Parties agreed that Canada fund $50 million to establish the Day Scholars Revitalization Society (the “Society”) to support Survivors and Descendants in healing, wellness, education, language, culture, heritage, and commemoration activities and programs.

The Purpose of the Day Scholars Revitalization Society

The purposes of the Society are, in consideration of the harms suffered by Day Scholars due to attending residential schools in Canada while not residing at those schools and the harms suffered by their children, to remediate those harms by creating and implementing projects and programs with funding from Canada to support the Day Scholars and their children with grants for healing, wellness, education, language, culture, heritage, and commemoration activities and projects and programs that;

  • revitalize and protect the Survivors’ and Descendants’ Indigenous languages
  • protect and revitalize the Survivors’ and Descendants’ Indigenous cultures
  • pursue healing and wellness for the Survivors and Descendants
  • protect the Survivors’ and Descendants’ Indigenous heritage; and
  • to promote education and commemoration for Survivors and Descendants