Syilx Indian Residential School Committee

The Indian Residential Schools were purposely designed to destroy our Indigenous languages, cultures, customs, and traditions.

The Syilx Indian Residential School Committee (SIRSC) is a survivor-led committee established by the Okanagan Nation Alliance to support healing, preserve Survivor experiences, educate the public, and guide the Syilx Nation’s response to the legacy of Indian Residential Schools. The committee is made up primarily of Survivors and their families from across the Syilx Nation, ensuring that Survivors’ voices remain at the centre of the work.

Its work has grown over more than two decades and includes several key areas:

• Supporting Survivors and families through gatherings, cultural healing initiatives, and opportunities to share experiences.
• Documenting Syilx history by recording Survivor testimonies and preserving them for future generations.
• Educating the public about the history and lasting impacts of residential schools from a Syilx perspective.
• Honouring Survivors and children who never returned through monuments, commemorative events, and educational resources.
• Advising the Okanagan Nation Alliance on residential school matters, truth, healing, and reconciliation initiatives.

Major accomplishments

The committee has led or helped develop a number of important initiatives, including:

• “Take the Indian Out of the Child: Okanagan Syilx Experiences in the Indian Residential School” is a book sharing the experiences of Syilx Survivors through their own words and photographs. It was published in 2021 after many years of work by the committee and Survivors.
• The Syilx Indian Residential School Monument is a monument created to honour Survivors and those who never returned home.
• Community commemorative monuments throughout the Syilx Nation.

One aspect that makes the committee’s work unique is that it centres Syilx teachings, language, and resilience alongside the history of trauma. Rather than focusing only on the harms of residential schools, the committee emphasizes that despite the system’s attempt to erase Syilx identity, the Syilx people, language, culture, and responsibilities to tmixʷ and tmxʷulaxʷ continue today. As the Okanagan Nation Alliance explains, residential schools were intended to destroy Indigenous languages, cultures, and spiritual relationships with the land, but “we are still here” and cultural revitalization continues through children, youth, Elders, and communities.

Today, the committee remains an important voice within the Syilx Nation, guiding education, commemoration, and healing while ensuring that Survivor knowledge continues to inform future generations.

Current Committee Members

SIRSC is comprised of two survivors from each member community of the Syilx Okanagan Nation.