By Sadhana Bharanidharan and Ryan Tuchow

Today (September 30) marks Canada’s second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which honors the survivors of the country’s residential schools, as well as their families and communities. There were 140 federally run residential schools in Canada that operated between 1867 and 1996. These institutions sought to strip Indigenous children of their culture, heritage and freedom, and have resulted in a legacy of intergenerational trauma for individuals, families and communities. We highlight the day here at Kidscreen because there are more than 476 million Indigenous peoples worldwide in 90-plus countries, many of whom are also dealing with the ongoing effects of colonialism.  

Today in Canada, millions of children left for school today outfitted in orange shirts, in commemoration of the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Orange Shirt Day, as it is also called, has a special focus on kids. It was started in schools, and seeks to bring attention to the plight of Indigenous children by way of the story of six-year-old Phyllis Jack Webstad, whose special first-day-of-school orange shirt was taken from her upon arrival at a residential school in 1973 and never given back. It symbolizes the loss of freedom and culture experienced by Indigenous children.

Canadian public broadcaster CBC Kids has a central role to play in truth and reconciliation, and is recognizing Orange Shirt Day this year by running a one-off special and a series of explainer videos on its website and also on CBC Kids News⁠, a digital platform led by teen contributors.

However,  Lisa Fender, senior producer at CBC Kids News, says her department’s commitment to doing a better job of telling Indigenous stories runs deeper than this programming on a single day. “In Canada, there is so much more need for strong Indigenous stories to be told right now,”  she says.

In the year following the country’s inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day, the CBC Kids team used its time to prep a more fulsome strategy for talking about these subjects and themes with kids. And they started with themselves.

“As a department, we decided we needed better Indigenous representation on our teams⁠,” Fender explains. “We work with a number of Indigenous people at different levels on our programming, but we’ve never had an Indigenous person on our team, which was a glaring gap for us.”

Lenard Monkman was appointed as an Indigenous producer for CBC Kids in May, and has since been contributing to creative and editorial decision-making across the department. Monkman, who is Anishinaabe from Lake Manitoba First Nation, had worked as a reporter for CBC’s Indigenous unit based in Manitoba since 2015.

He initiated the idea for a special with a panel featuring Indigenous youth talking about reconciliation.

Since Canada’s provinces varied on closing schools today or keeping them open, it was understood that a sizable portion of the target audience—kids ages nine to 13—would be in their classrooms. Fender says this was integrated into the 20-minute Orange Shirt Day special, Reconciliation in the Classroom (pictured), which is hosted by teen contributors Isabel DeRoy-Olson (citizen of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation) and Ainara Alleyne.

In the special, three Indigenous teens answer questions sent in from students across Canada, and share stories and fun facts about themselves. Fender says this was a strategic editorial decision to give room for the guests’ personalities to shine through. “When we thought about the structure of the special, we didn’t just want to jump into big, heavy, serious conversations,” she explains. “We wanted the audience to get to know the teens to show that they are people with their own goals and dreams, and to also help the kids watching relate to them.”

CBC Kids News is also exploring the topics of treaties and land acknowledgements in KN Explains, a weekly explainer segment for tweens on YouTube. Another similar video titled What is Orange Shirt Day?, aimed at younger kids ages seven to 10, is also up on the official CBC Kids website. As a producer, Monkman helped structure the segments and offered feedback on aspects like framing and tone.

Fender says efforts made by CBC Kids News to better represent Indigenous voices will be ongoing. And the team plans to use feedback from a content insights workshop held earlier this year with Indigenous kids.

“Out of that workshop, we found some great kids who we can involve in other areas of content that we produce,” she explains. “So we’re not just going to them once; we’re finding ways to involve Indigenous communities in everything that we do.”

The CBC is named in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, which were created to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation. Number 84 calls on Canadian media outlets, and specifically the CBC, to “be properly reflective of the diverse cultures, languages and perspectives of Aboriginal people.” This includes increasing its Aboriginal programming, and building more job access and professional development opportunities for Aboriginal peoples.