Learning Opportunities

The Consortia invites you to join us in this virtual engagement of the Blanket Exercise. 

This exercise intends to help participants understand how colonization of the land we now know as Canada has impacted the people who lived here long before settlers arrived. Through this exercise, designed by KAIROS Canada, participants will explore the nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, how this relationship has been damaged over the years, and how they can work toward reconciliation.

“The activity begins with digital blankets arranged on the screen to represent Canada before the arrival of Europeans. Participants representing Indigenous peoples move around on the blankets, as if they are using and occupying the land. A narrator reads from a script while someone playing the role of a European joins and interacts with those on the blankets. As the script traces the history of the relationship between Europeans and Indigenous peoples in Canada, participants respond to various cues and read prepared scrolls. At the end of the exercise only a few people remain on the blankets, which have been folded into small bundles and cover only a fraction of their original area. Created in 1997, the Blanket Exercise is a succinct overview of Indigenous rights in Canada that explores the major themes and findings of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). ” © 2016 KAIROS Canada