A special event was held on April 5 to celebrate the newly-raised flags outside the Four Directions Indigenous Student Centre. In collaboration with the Yellow House, the flag raising represents the ongoing support and allyship between Indigenous, gay, queer, trans, and 2spirit students across campus. 

The two poles now fly the flags of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Anishnaabe, Metis, Two Row Wampum, Pride, and Transgender communities.

The event featured presentations by Four Directions Director Kandice Baptiste, and Kel Martin, Sexual and Gender Diversity Advisor at Yellow House.

“It really helps to make everyone feel like a community instead of pockets of people doing work on their own, seeing the community come together and start to support each other,” Martin says of the collection of flags being flown in front of Four Directions. “It’s something that really benefits students of many identities, it helps build solidarity across different communities. It invites others in, and we become stronger, we have each others backs.”

The permanent location for the flags also marks a commitment towards meaningful action to make all locations on campus more inclusive and welcoming.

“Flags have a past and present, but most importantly they also have a future and I think that future is about moving forward and healing,” Baptiste says. “We want Indigenous, queer, nonbinary students to see the Four Directions Indigenous Student Centre as theirs, but we also want them to go to the ARC and see that they are welcome there as well, so it was really important to get the support of the larger community.”

A full recording of the event is available on the Four Directions Facebook page.