The search for bodies at a residential school in Brantford continues, but some of those who attended the Mohawk Institute themselves are sounding the alarm.
The Survivors’ Secretariat is a group of survivors who attended the Mohawk Institute — a residential school located in the city.
Their mission is to assist in the search of the school grounds for unmarked graves, but a recent cut to their funding has left organizers feeling devastated.
“This is the problem, we have only searched two per cent of the 680 acres of ground,” Laura Arndt said. “We found out Wednesday it wasn’t $3 million, it was $500,000. It’s an 86 per cent cut in funding.”
Other board members feel if their work doesn’t continue, survivors won’t have the information to properly process what happened to them, including survivor Roberta Hill.
“It was pretty devastating,” Hill said. “I went there when I was six. Our dad died, our mother was sick, she was taken away. So there was seven kids [left] at home.”
A group from the Survivors’ Secretariat will be travelling to Ottawa on Monday.
They have a meeting with Indigenous Services Canada to discuss the impact the funding cuts will have on their efforts.