NATIONAL DAY OF MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN
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Sunday was a National Day of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
To mark the occasion, about a dozen people held a peaceful protest in front of the Orillia Opera House Sunday at noon.
People were encouraged to wear red, to bring their voice, hand drums and prayer tobacco.
"In the heart of Orillia, me and my Indigenous brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunties and uncles all gathered to show awareness for the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls," said Kayla Sewell-Payne, one of the organizers of Sunday's event.
You may have noted red dresses hanging throughout Orillia's downtown.
They are part of the REDress Project, which was started by Métis artist and educator Jaime Black. She was a teacher in Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, where Helen Betty Osborne was murdered while walking at night. It was years before the two men who killed her faced justice.
Black was also inspired by a group of Colombian women who protested missing and murdered loved ones in Bogota.
The red dresses are a statement on the ongoing struggle to solve the mysteries of the more than 1,200 Indigenous women and girls across the country who have gone missing or been murdered.
For more information about REDress Project, visit the website.
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