Not forgotten: Annual vigil for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls moved online

By Sam Laskaris

OTTAWA – The annual vigil for Missing and murdered Indigenous Women and Girls will indeed still be held this year.

But because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the event, which is called the Sisters In Spirit Vigil and organized by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), will be staged online this month.

As has been the case the past 15 years, the vigil will be held the same day, Oct. 4.

NWAC president Lorraine Whitman said there was never any thought to cancelling the vigil this year.

“It’s necessary to do it for the families to make sure their loved ones are not forgotten,” said Whitman, who splits her work time between the NWAC’s head office in Ottawa and another office she has at Glooscap First Nation in Nova Scotia.

Last year, more than 100 communities across Canada staged their own vigil.

In previous years, the national vigil, held in Ottawa, included a march through downtown streets followed by a Parliament Hill gathering.

This year, however, in order to ensure the safety of the participants during the pandemic, NWAC officials have opted to stage their vigil via a webcast. It will begin at 2 pm (EST) and broadcast on NWAC’s website and on its Facebook page.

Whitman will serve as the master of ceremonies for the vigil. Speakers will include family members who have lost loved ones from across the country.

“I think we’ll be able to reach more people this year,” Whitman said of the fact the vigil has moved online for 2020.

Those who tune in for the broadcast will be asked to light a candle during the afternoon vigil. And they will also be asked to light another candle after sundown that evening, to recognize the lives of Indigenous women and girls that have been lost.

The Sisters in Spirit Vigil has been held annually since 2005. The event became a way to create awareness for the disproportionately high number of First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and girls who are murdered or go missing across Canada.

Whitman said there was never any talk of cancelling this year’s vigil; but in order to follow health and government regulations in place on the number of people that can assemble for an event, Whitman said NWAC officials knew the 2020 vigil would have to be different.

“It’s been in play for a while,” she said of the organizational planning to move the vigil online.

Whitman said she is not sure how many other communities across Canada will also be staging their own vigils this year.

But Whitman, a former president of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association, believes her home province will be staging at least a half dozen vigils in various communities.

“We leave it up to each individual community how they will do it,” she said.

Whitman added it is possible some locations across the country will still be able to gather for their vigils.

“There may be some events with some gatherings that do it with the social distancing,” Whitman said. “But I’m not sure what everybody will be doing.”

Besides its national office in Ottawa, the NWAC also has provincial and territorial associations.