Manicure Monday - Indigenous History Month Awareness Nails

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend! Now, the whole month of June in Canada is Indigenous History Month and tomorrow, June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day. As we are using our June nail theme as activism, I thought I would bring some attention and awareness to the ongoing devastation of discovering unmarked graves at residential schools across Canada.

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We were all horrified last year to hear about 215 unmarked graves discovered at a residential school site in Kamloops, B.C. and then another 104 closely after in Brandon, Manitoba. But, would you be shocked to hear that since then over 1000 more unmarked graves have been located, with 190 being discovered earlier this month?! Has the media decided to stop covering, do we only care when we initially hear about it and then never follow up? I feel like I'm fairly well informed and this information surprised me - it's a lesson that we can do better, we should do better and we can seek out the information on our own. 

Today's manicure, I've decided to share the number of unmarked graves discovered since May 2021 by ground-penetrating radar at 12 residential school sites so far. I think sometimes we can go a little numb to this information, but these were children, these were someone's family and they mattered. Also, do not forgot that these are unmarked - this is outside of the number of deaths in the thousands reported in the school system. So, with this month and tomorrow helping to shine the light on these issues, I urge you to read more and support more. I found this wikipedia page that lays it all out really clearly, but tomorrow, listen to indigenous voices and help where you can (amply voices, support causes, read literature, implement change!)

The products I used for this week's manicure are:

• Dimension Nails premium lacquer in The Activist
• ORLY Instant Artist Lacquer in Black
• ORLY Instant Artist Lacquer in White 
• Moyra Top Coat for Nail Stamping

This manicure was straight-forward with two coats of the base polish to start. Then, alternating between black and white polishes, I freehanded the numbers on to each nail. Then, I finished with the nail art top coat. 

Keeping up with my activism, I have been donating $100 a week to a charity of my choice and sharing about them - this week I am highlighting the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. While it says provincial organization, I know their toll free support line is national and their support goes farther than just British Columbia. I am choosing them this week because as more unmarked graves continue to be discovered and now work has begun to excavate the graves in Manitoba, it will resurface a lot of trauma for those that did attend and survive residential schools. Now, more than ever support is needed to help survivors through this difficult time. 

My goal for tomorrow is to listen to indigenous voices and help amply (without distracting from those sharing their messages), but also to encourage my government to do more, to search all sites in our province and do what's right in allowing those child to rest peacefully and their families to have closure on where they are. 

As always, make sure to check out Cosmetic Proof and Prairie Beauty Love to see their allyship nails too!