Early research on indigenous intergenerational trauma by Amy Bombay explains that alcoholism and child abuse is common in families that have faced both trauma and broken social structures.

The residential school system was created to remove all indigenous culture and to take indigenous children from their families. The last residential school closed in 1996.

Harper’s grandparents were residential school survivors. The trauma associated with this experience has affected her family until this day.

Her grandmother came back from residential school to raise a family in a remote location in the Boreal forest, without resources to cope with the abuse she had experienced. She started to abuse alcohol to deal with the pain that she didn’t know how to handle. She also had to manage a family.

Harper says the way her grandparents internalized their trauma has affected her father and his siblings. His pain and coping strategies were then learned by Harper and her siblings.

“When you understand why, it helps you see things completely differently, it helps us heal,” she said.

In 2014, Harper got sober. The following year, she had the goal of creating a scholarship in her mothers name. She was determined to break the cycle of trauma and change the lives of indigenous youth by showing them their value and strength.

She spent the next year creating a business plan and researching indigenous history in North America. It’s been important to her to educate people on the residential school system while growing her business.

“I always say I used lipstick as this platform” she said. “I want a new narrative for indigenous people, I want indigenous youth to see how resilient we are.”

Harper lost her brother to suicide in 2016. She says it was the most painful experience of her life, but it was the driving force behind what she wanted the impact of her business to become.

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