Rose.Henry's picture

Rose Henry

I am Tle’min from Sliammon Nation. I was taken from my family and community in 1966. I spent the better half of the first eight years of my life in a children’s hospital before I was placed in the foster care system just before my eighth birthday. The reasons I went there instead of residential school like my parents went to was because I was labeled mentally retarded; therefore I was un-adoptable and unteachable. It was through my foster parents’ unconditional love that I became the person who survived the foster care system; life on the streets; became a reasonable, good parent; and traveled the United Nations world conference in Durban South Africa, where I attended the world conference on Racism, Xenophobia and Zionism. I have developed the skills to speak to thousands people on multiple issues ending in ‘ism’ and ‘ide’. As a mature adult I returned back to school twice to get my grade 12 equivalence around 2007 where I have store to challenge my writing block in the same style I challenge public speaking; head-on. Since I started this part of my journey with getting my certificate, I have traveled to Scotland, England, the United States, and shared a small portion of my journey. Today I still struggle to write, but with less fear and more desires to overcome my fear of being mislabeled as mentally retarded. So, overcoming all the judgments I received as a child has been a struggle, but it’s one that I can overcome with a lot of help from my family and my community.

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