Joined: May 2007
Posts: 869
common experience payments
9/20/2007 at 11:15 PM
l have kinda been watching the news about these Residential school payments,or what they call common experience payments.a friend of mine attended the one in Brandon years ago,l met him in school,yes ,the school in Brandon on 26th street,,JR Reid.l remember them busing in the native kids to attend JR Ried.l hear them on the news about attending the residential schools,if this one in Brandon was a residential school,why were the kids bused into Brandon to attend JR Reid.? after talking to my friend about this,he said alot of the ones in Brandon are saying they got a crappy education.it is the same education l recieved as they were in my class too.my mother worked up at the Residential school on grand valley road.l asked her if she ever saw anything to think the kids were being harmed in any way,and she said no.she said alot of the kids were great,but some of them were not.l know she was only their for 8 hours a day,and l'm not stupid enough to think bad things never happened,but she seemed to think it was ran ok.the way they talk on the news,it makes it sound like there were all beaten and abused,l used to go up there with my dad to pick her up,and thought it was a cool place and got along good with most of them.so l don't think they can say they were all treated bad.back to my buddy,he applied and figures he'll get around $38,000.00 .he thinks he was there for around 9 years,but doesn't know for sure.he also said he went home on some weekends.he though the education he got was alot better than he would have got on the reserve.so l asked him,if he though the residential school was ok,and he said he was never treated bad,so why did he apply to get the money.he understood that everyone should apply whether you were abused or not.l think that some of the money could or should be used for coucilling if they need it.but l know when my friend gets his,we won't see him until its all gone..l'm not saying they don't deserve something,but l think its going to do alot more harm than good..maybe they should have gave them payments of so much a month ??