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PARIS The Skylight Festival returned to Five Oaks Retreat Centre on the weekend after a year-long absence.
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About 40 people gathered at the 116-acre natural setting on Bethel Road for the two-day event.
“This a festival that opens up space to allow people to gather and talk about justice, their faith and the arts,” said Bev Laforet, one of the festival organizers. “Not too many festivals do that kind of thing so this is a start of a movement.”
Bringing together people to have difficult conversations about social justice is a way for people to find inspiration and gain a better understanding of each other, said Laforest.
She said Ontario has a long way to go to resolve social justice issues.
“I think what this pandemic has shown us how far we have to go,” said Laforet, who is lead minister of St. Paul’s United Church in Oakville. “I’m a minister in a church and talking about Black Lives Matter is new to us .
“But the movement has been around for several years and racism has been around for hundreds of years and, yet in my community (white people), we’re just starting to talk about it.”
Featured at this year’s festival were artists whose work focuses on Indigenous rights, as well as the stories of those who identify as queer, Black and Indigenous.
Told about the thousands of people who gathered in Brantford on Canada Day to walk from the civic centre to former Mohawk Institute residential school in honour of residential-school victims and survivors., Laforet said events like that are important.
“It’s crucial that we keep that momentum going; that we don’t let it slow down,” she said. “We need to keep that energy going — be it Black Lives Matter, Indigenous issues — so that they don’t fade away and are forgotten.”
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Michael Shewburg, Five Oaks executive director, said the centre is an ideal location for the Skylight Festival, Michael Shewburg.
“The Skylight Festival has always been the event where people have really hard conversations,” he said. “People talk about decolonization, our own privilege, our own inherent bias.
“The festival is great place for people to come, have those hard conversations and at the same time celebrate as a community.”
Bordered by the Grand River and Whiteman’s Creek, the Five Oaks property includes Carolinian forests, trails and wildlife. Originally an education centre for the United Church of Canada, Five Oaks has been part of the community for 70 years.
Slated for closure in 2016, the retreat was saved and has transitioned into a inter-cultural and inter-faith retreat centre, serving the Christian, Muslim and Indigenous communities.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Five Oaks opened the grounds as an isolation centre for migrant workers for the agriculture industry.
In 2020, Five Oaks welcomed 278 migrant workers for 14-day isolation periods. The grounds served as an isolation centre for 256 migrant workers in 2021.
The retreat also has been home to migrant workers live at the centre and travel to and from work each day.
Five Oaks is already accepting bookings for migrant workers in 2022.
“The pandemic turned everyone’s lives upside down and was a kick in the shins for us,” Shewburg said. “But I think we’ll emerge stronger than ever when the post-pandemic reality arrives.”
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Skylight Festival returns to Five Oaks - Brantford Expositor
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