The Map to My School
At Art for Aid we believe in the connection to culture through land and language.
Traditional languages are vital to culture and have suffered from colonization but they are becoming revitalized through perseverance and engagement.
We hope to do our part by providing schools with professional cartography that identifies place names across Canada, in the original Indigenous language of that region.
The Map to My School
The Map to My School is an Art for Aid program that sees culturally relevant and professionally produced cartography purchased by Art for Aid and shipped to remote schools along with our art supplies.
The maps were produced by the University of Maine's Canadian/American Centre, and pinpoints the traditional names of locations in Canada. This, coupled with the definition of what those names mean can help young people to connect to their language. Often these places are locations that their relatives and neighbours know by the traditional name. Often these are places their ancestors would have travelled to for hunting, trade, or ceremonies.
We believe every school in Canada should have a map like this in the classroom.