Student artist Kolbi Williams designs Western’s orange shirt for Truth and Reconciliation

Kolbi Williams, a fourth-year English and creative writing student and a member of the Mohawk Nation from Six Nations of the Grand River, created the design on this year’s orange shirts sold at Western. She answered a call for submissions from the Office of Indigenous Initiatives, and her artwork is titled Tewa:aráton and Its Creations.

The design illustrates a Haudenosaunee creation story about lacrosse, in which a mouse and a squirrel, left out by their own team for being small, join the birds and are given wings. Williams said the story teaches us not to judge another by how they look.

The shirts are sold year-round at the Dellelce Family Bookstore in the University Community Centre. Proceeds support the Save the Barn campaign, which aims to preserve the last building from the Mount Elgin Industrial Institute, a residential school that operated until 1946 on what is now Chippewas of the Thames First Nation. The First Nation plans an interpretive centre in the barn.