Audio | “A race against time that must not be lost”: Indigenous communities’ right to the survival of their languages – Canada

When Doris and Esther came home during the summer months, they felt alienated from their family. The residential school taught them to feel ashamed of their language and culture, and to disrespect their Cree-speaking parents. (Lorena Fontaine) | To view a series of photos click here >>

Lorena Fontaine is battling to revive aboriginal languages — languages that have been quashed and brought to the brink of extinction by Canada’s residential school system. She is completing her PhD at the University of Manitoba, and argues that Canadian Indigenous communities have a legal right to the survival of language. For her, it’s a race against time that must not be lost.

Source: Undoing Linguicide: The legal right to the survival of Indigenous languages – Home | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio
Address: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/undoing-linguicide-the-legal-right-to-the-survival-of-indigenous-languages-1.3525609
Date Visited: Mon Aug 07 2017 15:08:23 GMT+0200 (CEST)

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  • Ekalavya* Residential School Scheme (EMR): a network of boarding schools where tribal children are to be educated in accordance with rules and syllabi provided by the government; such schools are being designated as “Eklavya Model Residential School (EMR)” with the objective of empowering students “to be change agent, beginning in their school, in their homes, in their village and finally in a large context.” – Government Guidelines 2010 | Backup >>
  • Residential School and Ashram School
    In some regions there are similar “Residential Schools” and “Ashram Schools” for tribal children, as in Tripura where they are managed by a society called “Tripura Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TTWREIS)” – Tribal Welfare Department, Government of Tripura
  • Factory schools “exist to turn tribal and indigenous children – who have their own language and culture – into compliant workers-of-the-future. The world’s largest Factory School stated that it turns ‘Tax consumers into tax payers, liabilities into assets’.” – survivalinternational.org/factoryschools | Learn more >>

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* Ekalavya (Eklavya, Eklabya): the name of a legendary archer prodigy “who, being a Nishada [Sanskrit Niṣāda, “tribal, hunter, mountaineer, degraded person, outcast”], had to give his thumb as a fee to the brahmin guru thus terminating his skill as an archer.” – Romila Thapar (“The epic of the Bharatas”) | Read the full paper here | Backup download link (pdf) >>

Note: “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” amounts to genocide, which the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention defines as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” (Article II, d & e)

Learn more about Childrens rights: UNICEF India | Ekalavya (Eklavya, Eklabya), EMR & Factory schools | Rights of Indigenous Peoples >>