Cattamanchi ramalinga reddy residential school in canada

Cover illustration by Lakeisha Marie

Residential Schools and its Lasting Impacts on Indigenous Communities

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

(TW: Violence, genocide, sexual violence)

What are Residential Schools?

Residential Schools were “schools” that were set up by the Canadian government but administered by churches.

The Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario, was the first to open in 1831, and the Gordon Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, being the last to close in 1996. Nearly 130 schools were placed throughout Canada and sought to have housed 150,000+ Indigenous children throughout the years of operation.

Cattamanchi ramalinga reddy residential school in canada to close

However, these children didn’t just go to the residential schools by choosing. They were taken from their families and forced into the schools. The main goals of the schools were to remove the children from their homes in order to assimilate them into the Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living, isola