Path to be set for work on literacy

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The scenic Fort Qu'Appelle Valley will provide the backdrop for a three day gathering designed for sharing information about current Aboriginal literacy initiatives, and to discuss where to go from here.

The Mamawenig "Sharing and Celebrating Our Knowledge" Provincial Aboriginal Literacy Gathering will be held May 14 to 16 at the Echo Valley Conference Centre, located northwest of Fort Qu'Appelle.

According to Byron Langan, event coordinator for the Provincial Aboriginal Literacy Steering Committee, which is organizing the gathering, the conference is geared toward three groups of participants - learners, practitioners, and Elders.

"We're going to be relying a lot on the practitioners and the learners and Elders to provide us with the necessary feedback, and then from there, to move forth."

While the focus of the gathering is on literacy, the event will go well beyond simply looking at reading and writing English, explained Sharon Miller, project coordinator for the steering committee.

"There's some people coming and talking about language literacy-First Nations language and cultural literacy. There's some people talking about technological literacy, like teaching e-mail to Elders, and cool things like that. There's folks talking about family literacy . . . creating the opportunities for families to learn together, and establishing literacy with children, so that when children are moving into the school system, they have the skills they need -not just reading and writing, but all of the kinds of skills that make one successful. There's folks talking about youth literacy in correctional kinds of settings, in justice settings. So there's lots of different places that people are doing things that they're talking about as literacy," Miller said.

"We're having mostly practitioners and learners who are involved in different programs around the province, and also from across the country, come and share what they're doing. So it's not like experts coming and telling us about stuff. It's people who are frontline practitioners and learners and programmers, coming and sharing what they're doing and learning from each other's experiences," she explained. "They're going to come and present, and also be participants in the gathering in each other's workshops."

Input from participants will be used to develop the provincial government's strategy for Aboriginal literacy for the next five to 10 years. But it will also be used by the steering committee, and by Aboriginal communities and organizations.

"We're also doing this in a way that the strategies will also be things people can take back to their own organizations and start carrying out. It's not telling the government what we want them to do, someone else to do., Partly it's that. And its also saying 'What can we do in our own communities?'"

For more information about the Aboriginal literacy gathering, visit the event Web site at http://www.nald.ca/province/sask/confrnce/index.htm.