Earlier this month Project of Heart’s Charlene Bearhead (National Manager for National Day of Healing and Reconciliation) teamed up with IRS survivor (and founder of National Day of Healing and Reconciliation) Maggie Hodson, as activists and and facilitators from seven organizations gathered to participate in a compressed version of Project of Heart that the two presented at a one day workshop in Calgary.

Facilitators from the Calgary Urban Aboriginal Initiatives Human Rights Domain, the Aboriginal team from the Calgary Boys and Girls Club, the Calgary Youth Detention Centre , the Calgary Public Schools, Calgary Catholic Schools, the University of Calgary, and a group of Indian Residential School health support workers, were all there to find out how they could connect to the learning and the teaching made available to them by Charlene and Maggie.

“The energy in the room was amazing!”, Charlene reports – “we did a “compressed” Project of Heart and it was wonderful!”

In addition to POH materials, Charlene and Maggie also used the 100 Years of Loss kit made available from the Legacy of Hope Foundation during the resource segment.

Here’s Charlene again: “I think it’s wonderful that one of the Elders is going to use Project of Heart with the young people that she works with in a youth detention centre. She is working with those youth to help them understand their own pain.”

One attendee, a youth support worker with the Boys and Girls Club, revealed that her father went to an Indian Residential School and that she didn’t know much because he never talked about it. “She was really impacted by what she had learned yesterday,” said Bearhead. “She told us that she was almost scared to know what happened to him.”

When the day was done, and the facilitator was asked for her reflections, she said, “It’s a good day and a good time for this country as this movement washes over this land.”

As a result of the workshop, at least thirteen groups and classes will be doing Project of Heart in the Calgary area.