P.E.I. project gathers names to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls

Thinh Nguyen · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 18, 2025 12:31 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

A caller task connected Prince Edward Island is aiming to honour and retrieve missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people.

The project, called The Silent Jingle, is led by Lox MacMillan-Metatawabin, a 22-year-old postgraduate of Holland College primitively from White Bear First Nation successful Saskatchewan.

At the bosom of the task is simply a reddish velvet-like hooded cloak, covered successful accepted jingle cones. Each cone is engraved with the sanction of a missing oregon murdered Indigenous pistillate oregon two-spirit person.

"Every azygous jingle represents an MMIWG2S+ and and the dependable of the jingles is to let voices to beryllium heard that were silenced," MacMillan-Metatawabin said.

Her squad has been putting retired calls connected societal media to cod names and is inviting radical from some Canada and the United States to nonstop submissions. As of her interrogation with CBC connected Thursday, 79 names had been submitted.

"I bash privation to showcase the numbers, and that's wherefore the jingles are truthful important because it represents a person, it represents a miss oregon a woman," she said.

"There's been much speech astir reconciliation and healing and everything for our communities, but there's inactive truthful overmuch much that needs to happen, and this is conscionable 1 task that could possibly assistance enactment the process of healing for our communities."

Names are inactive being accepted until April 22. People tin taxable by contacting the squad done email.

The completed cloak volition beryllium unveiled during a nationalist lawsuit connected May 24 successful P.E.I., MacMillan-Metatawabin said. Details astir the lawsuit volition beryllium posted connected the project's Facebook and Instagram pages, The Silent Jingle.

From sticky enactment to task for healing

The thought for The Silent Jingle began astir 2 years ago when MacMillan-Metatawabin was moving astatine Mi'kmaq Printing and Design successful Charlottetown.

The idea holds heavy idiosyncratic meaning for her. Her grandma was a Sixties Scoop survivor, and her begetter was a national Indian time schoolhouse survivor. MacMillan-Metatawabin said her parents and grandparents worked hard to springiness her a bully beingness and she has ever wanted to springiness back.

"I ever knew that successful my beingness I wanted to bash thing to assistance women and to assistance my Indigenous community."

Last year, she applied for and received a assistance aimed astatine tackling sex inequality. That backing helped crook her imaginativeness into reality. She past assembled a squad of 9 people, including a decorator to make the cloak.

"We chose a reddish cape and not a dress because we wanted the cape to beryllium capable to acceptable anybody, if anybody needs to deterioration it down the road," she said.

"There's going to beryllium immoderate achromatic fur that's going to beryllium connected the hood… The achromatic fur is besides to commemorate the Inuit peoples."

MacMillan-Metatawabin says that the cloak is besides meant to spark conversations and rise awareness. 

"If you person nary idea… [about] Indigenous peoples oregon MMIWG2S+ whatever, if you just, like, spot a reddish cape, it draws your attention," she said.

Each clip idiosyncratic sends successful the sanction of a loved one, it's a infinitesimal of spot and respect, she said.

"It's specified a large woody to beryllium capable to unfastened wounds and stock these names, and for us, it's specified an honour, truthful we privation to marque definite that everything is respectful and with emotion and compassion."