Posted on March 18, 2019 by Laura Forsythe
The Little Métis Sing With Me program offers resources for facilitators, parents, and children. The resources include songs, rhymes, dance, Michif language, take-home books, and crafts.
Little Métis Sing With Me program is a parent-child program with three strands: Family literacy Essential skills Métis culture and history This is an exciting program with lots of wonderful resources for facilitators to share with parents and children: songs, rhymes, dance, Michif language, take home books, crafts, and guests. Little Métis Sing With Me Training Workshop A three-day workshop to train participants to run their own Little Métis Sing With Me programs. All participants receive a facilitator’s manual and all resources. Also included are a combination of dance, songs, rhymes, books, and activities to enhance the training and provide ready-made resources for the program. Registration fee is $125 per person or $2,500 for your group (max 20 participants). Please contact us for upcoming training dates and to find out how to apply for funding to set up this program in your community.
Posted on by Jeremiah Sharpe
Cheyenne Chartrand, Spiritual Care Provider at Neecheewam Inc., explains Neecheewam’s approach to education.
Neecheewam Inc. goes beyond pedagogical programs in an effort to redefine concepts of treatment, emphasizing cohort and peer education through an “extended family” that results in whole person learning. Whole person learning requires moving beyond the text book to include academic, professional, emotional, and spiritual growth.
Posted on March 12, 2019 by Dene Basil
Bridging the western educational world with local First Nation culture and traditions .
In this interview Francis Ross talks about the on the land learning program in Old Crow Yukon. This program is designed to achieve educational curriculum in a First Nation lens. This program fully utilizes local First Nation knowledge, culture, and traditions and fuses it with current western education curriculum. The approach allows students to become more comfortable by learning with familiarity using Fist Nations tools, methods and ways of life to meet educational goals. This program creates a bridge between the two worlds many First Nation people experience as a hardship.
Posted on March 6, 2019 by Kaitlyn Walcheske
Cheryll Welke shares about her community involvement volunteering in schools by talking about her Métis culture and identity.
Cheryll Welke volunteers in classrooms in High Level, Alberta to engage with students through the sharing of moose meat and bannock and talking about the significance of Métis contribution to Canadian society. Welke wants Métis youth to be proud of who they and understand how much Métis people have contributed to the development of Canada.
Posted on by Pam Greene
The Principal of the Dene Tha Community School, Carlito Somera, discusses the school’s commitment to holding fall and winter Cultural Camps for students in grades 4-12.
Carlito Somera is the Principal of the Dene Tha Community School located in Treaty 8, in the community of Chateh, Alberta, northwest of High Level. Somera discusses the Dene Tha’s Cultural Camps offered both in the fall and winter. During the fall camp, students from Grades 4-12 attend the Cultural Camp held over a five day period. There are many academic outcomes that are attached to the Cultural Camps. High school students earn and gain credits as part of the curriculum.
This land-based learning portion of the curriculum includes the Dene language and culture. With the leadership and support of local Dene hunters and language specialists, students learn how to prepare, cut, and dry meat. Students also participate in other cultural activities such as berry picking, willow gathering, storytelling, and playing traditional hand games. In the winter, the Cultural Camp is held at Bistcho Lake. Students travel by vehicle on ice roads to the summertime fly-in fishing location and stay in cabins during their visit. Some of the cultural activities taught are how to ice fish.
Posted on by Charity Gladstone
The SENĆOŦEN Survival School and Language Apprenticeship programs value our history and teach the ways and beliefs of our W̱SÁNEĆ homeland and worldview.
SENĆOŦEN Survival School: This program is a fully SENĆOŦEN immersion experience (EWENE W̱ENITEM ḴEN SḰÁL – no English Language is spoken) for Children 5-6 or at the Kindergarten program level. Our program teachers meet the Ministry Prescribed Learning Outcomes of the Kindergarten Curriculum. Children will spend 3.5 hours in classroom Learning the Kindergarten Provincial Curriculum through a SENĆOŦEN medium. For 2.5 hours per day, children will also learn through engagement with nature in the playgrounds and forests around our school and at beaches and culturally significant places. Children can enter the LE,NOṈET Immersion stream at this level.
SENĆOŦEN Language Apprenticeships: The goal of the Mentor-Apprentice Program is to facilitate the development of fluent speakers of SENĆOŦEN language where fluent speakers are partnered with committed learners in an immersion environment in the home and on the land. This is a one-on-one language immersion program. A “mentor” (a fluent speaker of a language) is paired with an “apprentice” (learner).