Conference to focus on teaching language to youth

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Kwii-anishinaabemtooway na gdi-binoojiinmag nongo?-Will you speak the language to your children today?-is the theme of the 12th annual Anishinaabemowin Teg Language Conference, taking place March 30 to April 2. Through the conference, to be held at the Kewadin Casino and Convention Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., participants will learn and share ideas about how to retain the Ojibwe, Odawa and Pottawanimee languages before they are completely gone.

"We are seeing this as a critical thing that the language is being lost and the children are not speaking these languages anymore," said Isadore Toulouse, president of Anishinaabemowin Teg, a non-profit corporation based in Wikwemikong that is dedicated to the revival of the Ojibwe language.

According to Toulouse, Anishinaabemowin Teg acts as a catalyst for translating and transcribing material for government documents.

"We also create workbooks, resource books for elementary schools." Currently, the organization is compiling short stories in three different dialects of the Ojibwe language and producing the stories in a booklet form and in recordings by Elders who speak the language.

Although Toulouse volunteers his time to help co-ordinate the annual language conference, he is committed full-time to teaching the importance of the Ojibwe language to high school students at Sutton district high school.

"It's very important to learn and retain these languages because it tells us who we are as Anishinaabe people. It gives us our identity as to being able to share what we know and understand about Anishinaabe ways in the language. It revives our identity as to who we are as Anishinaabe people."

Community members, educators, chiefs, councillors and anybody who is interested in reviving the language are invited to attend the conference and spend four days networking and learning together about ways to bring the language back to the younger generation. They can do this through 30 different workshops, including one on building self-esteem in Aboriginal youth that will be presented by a youth from Anishinaabemowin Teg, and another featuring Orion Corbiere, a Lakehead University student, who will talk about how to build an immersion program. Yet another workshop will focus on natural experience learning, which will provide information on how a family can learn together on a daily basis.

Participants will also learn how to do quill work and sweetgrass work and how to make baskets, while also learning about the cultural values involved in these traditional crafts.

"People will participate in these and they will leave with an item," said Toulouse. "They will learn the traditional ways of collecting and maintaining the material that they require for the particular craft."

Each year a number of scholarships are awarded during the conference, given to students in memory of people who worked in language retention and revitalization but who have since passed on. Among those who have scholarships awarded in their name are Ernestine Buswa, Dominic Eshkawogan, Jean Shawawa and Dorothy Hope Toulouse. The presentation of the scholarship awards will take place during the banquet the evening of March 31.

In order to be considered for a scholarship, each student applying was required to write one or two paragraphs about their future plans and how the Anishinaabe language plays a role in those plans. Applicants were also required to submit a tape recording of themselves talking about why they feel the Anishinaabe language is important, and effective ways to learn the language.

Students in elementary school chosen to receive a scholarship will receive $100, successful high school applicants will receive $300 and post-secondary recipients could receive up to $500, depending on the number of applicants chosen to receive the award at this level.

"Last year, we had about 25 applicants and we funded all of them and we are expecting to do the same this year," saidoulouse.

Toulouse said the success of the annual language conference can be seen by the number of people who return to the event year after year.

"We see it through the communities that show interest in bringing groups of people to the conference. For example, we have one reservation down here that registers about 100 of their community members and another community brings in 200, so it just grows that way."

Last year more than 1,400 people attended the conference and Toulouse anticipates even more this year. He said one of the biggest highlights of the event has to be the people who attend.

"We get people from all over the place like Oklahoma, British Columbia, Halifax and people from as far as California."

The deadline for registration is March 17. For more information contact conference co-ordinator Joyce Johnson at 1-800-997-9991.