Recounting Huronia
Background: In operation from 1876 until 2009, the Huronia Regional Centre of Orillia Ontario was the oldest and largest facility in Canada to house persons with intellectual disability diagnoses. Survivors who spent their childhoods living and working at Huronia report experiences of neglect and poor living conditions, as well as physical and sexual abuse, but those stories have long been excluded from the public record.
Aim: The projects described below document the history of the Huronia Regional Centre as experienced by institutional survivors.
Related Project: Huronia Survivors Speakers Bureau
https://exhibits.wlu.ca/s/huronia/page/on-the-road-with-the-speakers-bureau
Objectives: To coordinate a speakers bureau, a community outreach activity that enables institutional survivors to headline public speaking events around Canada for audiences of researchers, students, policymakers, service providers, and self-advocates.
Funding: Strategic Program Investment Fund
Team Members:
- Jen Rinaldi – Project Lead
- Kate Rossiter – Co-Investigator
- Siobhan Saravanamuttu – Student Collaborator
- Carrieanne Ford – Community Partner
- Harold Dougall – Community Partner
- David Houston – Community Partner
- Cindy Scott – Community Partner
- Patricia Seth – Community Partner
- Marie Slark – Community Partner
Related Project: Recounting Huronia Digital Archive
https://exhibits.wlu.ca/s/huronia/page/recountinghuronia
Objectives: To build an open-access digital archive featuring donated records, audio and video interviews with survivors, and onsite tour photography, organized in ways that that centre survivor histories of the Huronia Regional Centre.
Funding: Strategic Program Investment Fund
Team Members:
- Kate Rossiter – Project Lead
- Jen Rinaldi – Co-Investigator
- Nancy Viva Davis Halifax – Co-Investigator
- Annalise Clarkson – Student Collaborator
- Siobhan Saravanamuttu – Student Collaborator
- Katharine Viscardis – Student Collaborator
- Alex Tigchelaar – Student Collaborator
Related Project: Recounting Huronia: A Participatory Arts-Based Research Project
Objectives: To explore the history of the Huronia Regional Centre with institutional survivors in monthly workshops using an arts-based, trauma-informed research creation methodology.
Funding: SSHRC Insight Development Grant
Team Members:
- Kate Rossiter – Project Lead
- Jen Rinaldi – Co-Investigator
- nancy viva davis halifax – Co-Investigator
- David Fancy – Co-Investigator
- Jay Dolmage – Co-Investigator
- Patricia Seth – Community Partner
- Marie Slark – Community Partner
