The Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery is hosting a refugee storytelling event Sunday at the Manitoba Legislature.
    
Ray Dirks explains the afternoon is connected to the Along the Road to Freedom: Mennonite Women of Courage and Faith exhibit currently on display at the Keystone Gallery in the lower level of the legislative building.

"(It) is about (Mennonite) women primarily who brought their children out of the former Soviet Union to peace and freedom in Canada, often without their men. These are stories that repeat to this day and I recall during the tour of this exhibit some time ago, a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo...came over to me and said matter-of-factly 'This is my story.'"

Dirks adds this storytelling event should serve as a reminder to us all.

Sunday's event will feature people telling brief stories connected to some of the women in the exhibition paintings, alternating with stories of more recently arrived women refugees from Liberia, Syria and Columbia. "We're hoping that in alternating these stories it will be very powerful and it will remind us that unless we are the Indigenous people, we are all refugees," added Dirks.

The afternoon will also feature an Indigenous drum song by Mike Calder and the Brown Bear Spirit Singers.

"I think that's appropriate that we also, as we're remembering and honouring and being thankful for the people who are responsible for our being here, that we also remember that there were people here (in Canada) when we came and we should honour and remember them as well," said Dirks.

The Riel Gentlemen's Choir will also perform at the Sunday event.