Tony Smith and Kristina Llewellyn represented the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation (DOHR) project at the Canadian History of Education Association (CHEA) conference in New Brunswick, October 18-21, 2018. Their co-presentation was entitled "Building Just Relations: Oral History and Virtual Reality in History Education".
Tony Smith is a survivor of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, a segregated welfare institution for black children. Kristina Llewellyn, faculty member of the Games Institute and Social Development Studies professor at UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ, founded the DOHR project with support from Smith and other survivors in partnership with the NSHCC Restorative Inquiry and the organization Victims of Infant and Child Exploitation Services (VOICES):
DOHR is a project that creates and assesses virtual reality oral histories for students to address the historical harms of racism. opened in 1921 as a welfare institution for black children who were segregated from white-only welfare institutions. Residents suffered the effects of institutionalized racism and abuse during the 70 years of its operation.
-
The first project of DOHR is a Virtual Reality experience that brings students into a digitally rendered representation of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. They explore the home and listen to stories from Smith, and survivors Gerry Morrison and Tracey Dorrington-Skinner.Â
Smith and Llewellyn co-presented on the importance of oral storytelling for a restorative approach to history learning in schools. They shared a demo of DOHR and explained the goals of the project with teachers who were attending CHEA.
The DOHR project is funded in part by the IMMERSe partnership grant. Follow @projectDOHR on twitter for more updates.