Winnipeg high school students leading TRC learning

Students march in the Orange Shirt Day walk for the first time at Technical Vocational High School. (Michelle Gerwing/CTV News Winnipeg)

This is the first year Technical Vocational High School had an Orange Shirt Day walk.

The school's principal Garth McAlpine said students asked to do it this year to carry the message of the day outside the walls of the school.

"They are taking a leadership role in supporting the learning of others and sharing culture and celebrating their indigeneity," he said.

While the walk is new, the week of learning is not.

Monday is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. This year, it's a provincial statutory holiday in Manitoba for the first time.

Since classes will be out, Orange Shirt Day was marked Friday at many Winnipeg schools, including Tec-Voc.

Being apart of the school’s drum circle is helping students Gage Bloomfield and Jesse Spence connect with their culture.

“I never really knew what smudging was until I came here or drumming, because up north, it's it was kind of shunned in my reserve,” said Bloomfield.

The Grade 11 student is from War Lake First Nation.

Bloomfield said during this time of year, he learns a lot about the impacts residential schools had on Indigenous culture as well as his own family.

He said his granny went to a residential school but it wasn’t talked about much.

“She’s a strong lady and I look up to her very much,” he said.

His peer, Jesse Spence, also knows first hand the generational trauma residential schools caused through his father.

“He didn’t go to residential school but he is a first generation that came from it,” he said.  “There was a lot of hurting and healing from that.”

It's not just students making connections this time of year. Livia Gloux, a chef instructor of culinary arts at the school said she didn't know her Métis heritage as a child.

“I don’t really know my family, that’s the whole thing about being separated culturally. It’s hard to find your own culture. So, this is my way of finding my culture,” Gloux said.

Every Orange Shirt Day for the last 10 years, she’s worked with her students to prepare a traditional stew for one thousand people at the school.

They serve a dish called Three Sisters Stew. The recipe uses corn, beans, and squash, which are the three sisters Indigenous crops of Canada.

Bloomfield said seeing more and more orange every year shows Indigenous culture is now being embraced, not erased.

“It’s really nice that they have the thought of putting on an orange shirt and saying 'I support you,'” he said.