Photo fills Saskatchewan residential school survivor with pride

Grant Severeight feels proud when he looks at the black and white photograph.

It reminds him how far he's come. He's a residential school survivor, a former alcoholic and drug addict.

"I have a beautiful life now," the mental health therapist with Health Canada told Saskatoon Morning host Leisha Grebinski.

• American photojournalist captures portraits ofresidential school survivors

He credits the turnaround in his life to telling his story. Telling people about the trauma and abuse he suffered while attendingSt. Phillips Indian Residential School in Kamsack, Sask. from 1955-64.

Daniella Zalcman is also a storyteller. The London-based American photojournalist spent three weeks photographing residential school survivors in Saskatchewan.

The multiple exposure portraits, including the one she shot of Severeight, are being featured onThe New Yorker magazine's Instagram page this week.

"I learned just how significant and impactful intergenerational trauma can be and it is something that we don't necessarily think about and that, I think, we easily take for granted," she said.

"We think about things that happened in the past and we assume they are bygones, and that is just not the case."

Although Severeight believes the project will make a difference, he said even more needs to be done to raise awareness.

"Our stories haven't really been heard the way we think they should have been heard," he said "There's a lot of media attention on it, but really, still lots of people -- not only in Canada, but in the U.S. and all over North America. People have never really heard what happened in terms of genocidehere to First Nations children."