Three months have passed since the discovery of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a former residential school site in Kamloops, British Columbia.

The children's remains were found last May, and the following month, 751 graves of unknown persons were discovered at a former residential school site in Marieval, Saskatchewan.

The Canadian government announced financial assistance to address the shock caused by the discovery of the unidentified graves.

Artist Johnny Bandura, who belongs to the Salish Indigenous people, decided to contribute to commemorating the children victims in his own way.

Bandura was born in the Northwest Territories, raised in Kamloops, and currently lives in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta.

His grandmother attended the compulsory Kamloops residential school for Indigenous people in the 1930s, and his father lives near the school in the vicinity of the site where the children’s remains were found.

The artist is about to complete an art project consisting of 215 drawings representing what each child would have been had their fate been different.

So far, artist Johnny Bandura has completed 200 out of 215 drawings, each representing a unique character wearing a distinctive outfit.

In his drawings, he chose traditional clothing, a nurse’s uniform, a judge’s robe, and a hockey player, for example.

"I wanted to ensure representing different aspects of society and express through art what these children could have achieved had they survived."

The artist is currently negotiating to display his drawings at the Kamloops art gallery once all the drawings are ready.

Bandura also looks forward to publishing a book containing all the drawings so people can see them up close, as he believes the impact of viewing the drawings up close is much greater than viewing them on a computer or phone screen.

Beyond offering an apology, he emphasizes the necessity to honor the memory of Indigenous children who were victims of former residential schools in Canada.

As the artist said, he wants to emphasize the importance of what these children could have achieved in their lives, because we have lost a significant piece of humanity.

Canada imposed the residential school system to separate Indigenous children from their families and assimilate them into white culture.

About 150,000 children were taken from their families and placed in schools where they suffered abuse, sexual harassment, and diseases.

About 4,000 children died due to the dire living conditions in residential schools across Canada.