The Remembering Project invites Canadians to acknowledge our collective responsibility for the residential schools set up in our name and take action to meet our collective responsibility.

The Remembering Project mobilizes Canadians to take action in support of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities engaged in searches for residential school students who died while attending these institutions and who remain disappeared. All of our work is conducted with the consent of and in support of the committee of survivors overseeing the search process at the schools they attended.  

The project was launched on September 30, 2023, by Ben Rowswell, Convenor of the Circle for Democratic Solidarity, following engagement with First Nations communities in Northern Ontario. It draws on insights from the benefits of memory culture as practised by other countries with experiences of large-scale, systematic human rights abuses. For more information on memory culture, please consult:

• Long Shadows, Erna Paris (2001)

• Learning from the Germans, Susan Neimer (2019)

• An Introduction to Memory Politics in Canada and Europe, Oliver Schmidtke (2022)

If you are aware of other communities that would appreciate volunteer support from non-Indigenous Canadians who recognize our collective responsibility for the harm inflicted, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at ben@democraticsolidarity.net. We have been working closely with the Shingwauk community for some time now and are committed to extending our support to other communities.

For more information on both our research and volunteer opportunities, please visit our volunteer information page.