residential school survivors

Residential school survivors are Indigenous people who attended government-mandated boarding schools, particularly in Canada, where children were forcibly removed from families and communities to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture.

These institutions, many run by churches, operated from the 1880s through the late twentieth century and subjected students to abuse, neglect, and cultural erasure.

The term acknowledges both the trauma endured and the resilience of those who lived through it: Residential school survivors testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.