The Dryden Native Friendship Centre is holding a memorial march for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people on Tuesday.
The annual event is held on Valentine's Day each year and is part of many which will take place across the country.
Tiffany Thompson is the organizer of the event for the Dryden Native Friendship Centre, where she works as the Indigenous mentor.
“It's a very important event, it's very impactful,” she said. “It's important to raise awareness about this issue. It exists in our community here, even though we're in a smaller community.”
She said just allowing people to know this is an issue and supporting those who have been affected like survivors, families, and friends will help improve the situation.
Thompson said in the two and a half years organizing this event and another one in October, which is the National Day of Action for MMIWG2S, what sticks with her is the resiliency of the people.
She said this year’s event will be quite a big event with schools and organizations participating.
“We're gathering here at the Friendship Centre around 10:45 in the morning,” she said. “We are going to be opening up with some brief remarks, a prayer and we're having someone come in [with an] honour song to start us off.”
She said participants will then march to the downtown core and back to the Friendship Centre, where a lunch will be provided for free.
She said one activity will allow participants to get a red handprint photo taken by a professional photographer for free and there will be draws for prizes, including five ribbon skirts.
Thompson said they had a really good time last year even though the weather was cold and they had to deal with COVID-19 protocols. She’s hopeful with a weather forecast showing mild temperatures on the day that it will be much nicer for people to show their support.
“We're expecting to be a nice big event and hopefully get a lot of people in the community involved,” she said.
