Write to Read BC

Tag: reading

  • Gitanmaax

    About the community

    The Gitanmaax Band are Gitxsan people live where the Skeena and Bulkley rivers meet, in north-western BC near Hazelton. Gitanmaax was the name of the winter village, which became the current reserve. Gitanmaax means People who Fish by Torchlight.

    The Gitanmaax Band currently has about 800 members living in the community, and about twice as many more living elsewhere.

    Every 2 years, members elect a Chief and 12 council members. Each council member is appointed a portfolio of services that the band administration delivers to the community:

    • Community-member services, including education, social development, child and youth wellbeing, and health.
    • Infrastructure and community services, including lands, housing, public works, and public safety.
    • Professional services, including administration, finance, economic development, band membership, legal counsel, and company management.

    About the library

    Gitanmaax installed a library in its Hazelton First Nation Resource Centre. The community and council did this in collaboration and partnership with Write to Read BC. The library includes display cases for important cultural objects, wooden models of traditional Indigenous housing, and books about a range of Indigenous cultures and lands.

    Hazelton school library, installed by Write to Read BC, with space for working and meeting.
    The newly installed books and important cultural objects.

    The library has tables and seating for working and meeting. Along one wall, it has computers and screens to allow remote attendance at online courses and conferences, in its learning centre.

    The learning centre in the Hazelton school library.
    Four workstations and a printer, with the capacity to grow the library’s learning centre.

  • Saving education in Gitsegukla: video

    When Gitsegukla elementary school principal Louise Ormerod talks about her school’s journey from failure to success—not just for the Kindergarten to Grade 7 students, but also for adult learners in the community—Write to Read BC gets part of the credit.

    School risked getting shut down

    In 2018 the BC Ministry of Education assessed the school. It failed. The ministry said the school would be closed if it didn’t resolve the 21 violations ministry auditors found. The community also knew the school was poor. Some families left the community so their children could get an education. New teachers quickly left.

    But two years later, when auditors returned, they found a vast improvement. The school was “teaching to the curriculum” and meeting BC Ministry of Education standards. Auditors observed the school had found the resources every elementary school needs. Literacy rates increased 400%. Teachers stayed.

    Jump to the video

    Community commitment, a plan, and a library

    Ministry auditors told Ormerod that hers was the only audited school that did not have a single violation that year. Ormerod credits her staff and the community’s commitment to saving education in their community. She says Write to Read BC not only played a role, but made it easy, by being prpared and by knowing who to call to solve various problems. As for the library Write to Read BC installed, Ormerod says, “we had the best library and learning centre we could have ever asked for to support that learning.”

    The story on video

    In this 9½-minute video of an online talk, Ormerod tells the story of her school’s journey.

    School principal Louise Ormerod talks about improving literacy and numeracy at her school.

    Ormerod also gives advice to other schools who want to develop a library of their own:

    • Give the library a formal opening, with all the fanfare it deserves, to acknowledge the accomplishment. Gitsegukla school missed theirs because of Covid-19 restrictions.
    • Identify a champion who’s passionate about maintaining the facility once it’s launched.
    • Open the library after hours, so adult community members can use the library, and can attend online courses by using the library’s learning centre.
    • Get trained to manage a digital lending system.

    Ormerod credits the expertise and connections of Write to Read BC’s volunteers, and the fundraising efforts of the Rotary Club for helping to make success possible for Gitsegukla Elementary and the whole community.

    Success despite COVID-19

    The community, the school, and Write to Read BC installed a library while complying with COVID-19 restrictions. The shelving, furniture, books, and computer equipment were installed during a school holiday, because students were offsite then. Obviously, the out-of-town volunteers could not socialise or stay with community members.

  • Daylu Dena, Lower Post

    About the community

    Daylu Dena, or Lower Post, are Kaska Dena, a tribal council of people in northern BC, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Lower Post is on the Alaska Highway, at the northern border of BC and the Yukon, near Watson Lake. About 300 people live in Lower Post. Daylu Dena are a matriarchal society with interrelated families.

    Traditionally, Kaska Dena were a nomadic nation travelling across 100,000 km² of traditional territory to hunt and trap, and trade with neighbouring Nations. In some ways the nomadic life continues as community members continue to follow the seasons, and hunt and gather. Environmental protection is a focus, as is economic development.

    The Daylu Dena Council runs a company that provides a broad range of construction services and heavy-equipment rental across the Yukon and northern BC, ranging from roadworks and earthworks to residential construction, and from labour procurement to environmental remediation.

    The community completed a cultural and administrative centre in spring 2024—a building intended as offices for the council, and Services BC. It has a gymnasium, coffee shop, kitchen, library, and more.

    The civic building in Lower Post.
    The building will also house an Indigenous library.

    About the library

    The library that Write to Read BC installed in Daylu Dena’s civic building focuses on Indigenous books. The library opened in the spring of 2024.

    The partially installed library in Daylu Dena cultural and administrative building.
    The library was furnished with shelves under the contract for the entire building. Write to Read BC’s library response team helped install the books, computers, and screens.

  • Preparing to install Daylu Dena library

    Write to Read BC’s co-leads met to plan the installation of books and equipment in the Daylu Dena civic building by the end of the year.

    The building was completed a year ago, and the community and Write to Read BC are both eager to see the library installed.

    Since the library was built as part of a larger contract, it came fully finished with shelving and furniture. Write to Read library response team only needed to provide the books and computers, including a monitor. This reduced the need for financial input from Write to Read BC.

    Foyer and offices upstairs in Dalyu Dena's cultural and adminsitration building.
    The library is on the upper level, with a glass wall to admit plenty of light.

  • Visit to Daylu Dena’s civic-building site


    This month, Write to Read BC’s design response team visited Daylu Dena, just south of Watson Lake, BC. Visitors included lead architect Scott Kemp and Ryan Arsenault.

    Daylu Dena civic building: a construction site in winter.
    For our visit in late 2023, the Daylu Dena civic building was a winter construction site.

    The community is constructing a cultural and administrative building that will be completed in 2024. The building will have:

    • a Service BC office for driver’s licensing and other government business.
    • administration offices and a council chamber for Daylu Dene community business.
    • an adjoining room for the judge’s chamber, so the council chamber can be used as a court room.
    • a large gym.
    • a commercial kitchen and a coffee shop.
    • a recording studio, and language room.

    An Indigenous library

    Of course, the Daylu Dena civic building will also have a Write to Read BC library, the first to be stocked only with Indigenous books.

    A site visit to the cultural and administration building as construction approaches completion.
    Write to Read BC volunteers inside the construction site, looking up at the future location of the library.

    The library is planned for the top floor, overlooking the foyer. Its glass wall will admit lots of light.

    There team will return in 2024 to help plan the library with the community.

  • Nlaka’pamux Nation, Kumsheen, or Lytton

    The Nlaka’pamux Nation has many bands, whose traditional territory includes parts of the Thomson River, Fraser Canyon in BC and south into the North Cascades region of the USA. The Nation is constructing a multipurpose community centre in Kumsheen, or Lytton.

    The centre will include spaces for childcare, youth programming, cultural gatherings and celebrations, and for knowledge exchange and language revitalization. This project will also include a commercial teaching kitchen, a community café, and an Elders lounge. The building is designed with a strong focus on sustainability, cultural preservation, and climate resilience.

    About the library

    In 2027, Write to Read BC plans to install a reading room in partnership with the Nlaka’pamux Nation.

  • Capilano Little Ones gets library

    One of Squamish Nation’s urban schools, Capilano Littlest Ones Xwemelch’stn School, celebrated its new library in November 2022. The school is on Squamish land in Greater Vancouver.

    The school brings together 130 Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in the Norgate area of urban North Vancouver. The school and its library help break down social barriers, build bridges across cultures, and re-establish positive relationships. Capilano Littlest Ones is a community school under the auspices of North Vancouver School District.

  • Usborn funding for books

    Usborne Books at Home is funding $1,000 each for Write to Read BC’s current library projects. A discussion over the summer led to Usborne’s support for the libraries of Gitsegukla, Tsideldel, and Heiltsuk first nations.

    With each $1,000 order, Usborne will also provide free shipping and a 25% credit for additional purchases. This helps Write to Read BC make cash donations go even further. Our volunteer team thanks Usborne and its local representative, Louise Toews, for their generosity.

    Logo for Usborne Books At Home Canada.

    Write to read BC volunteer Wendy Brundage visited Gitsegukla in early September, and will follow up with the Elementary School’s principal Louise Ormerod to consult on the school’s book choices.

    Usborne is based in southern Ontario, and has been in business for over 50 years. It’s a past winner of Children’s Book Publisher of the Year. Its mission is to help spread a love of literacy to kids and their families across Canada.

  • 10 BC libraries to get SILT funds

    In April, Write to Read BC members identified 10 libraries eligible for funding from the Supporting Indigenous Libraries Today foundation, or SILT. Its goal is to support Indigenous communities that do not currently have a public library, and to help existing First Nations public libraries to expand.

    SILT foundation is set up by Goodminds.com, which donates 5% of sales to the foundation.

    SILT supports Write to Read BC with generous funding. In Bella Bella, a Write to Read BC library received books worth $10,000 this summer. SILT also donated over $8,000 to support the Gitsegukla community library in BC with a donation of new books.

    Write to Read BC co-lead, Bob Blacker, said: “The response to these books from our communities has been amazing. For the kids, it is the best part of the library. SILT is a true platinum sponsor of our project.” Blacker gives his heartfelt gratitude to Goodminds.com owner Achilles Gentle, and former owner Jeff Burnham.

    Burnham is a member of the Write to read BC team of volunteers.

    SILT logo. SILT is a foundation funded by Goodminds.com.

    Blacker invites indigenous-led libraries in BC to contact Write to Read BC for information on how to access and use SILT funds for books.

    Act now:

    Contact Write to Read BC

  • 14 palettes of books to Lax Kw’alaams

    The Lax Kw’alaams library, part of the Write to Read BC project, was featured in a Vancouver Sun article. It describes community reactions to the arrival of new library books.

    Excerpt from Vancouver Sun, March 20, 2021.

    By Douglas Todd

    “Please bring us more books” First Nation librarians ask.

    Naomi White still remembers her delight when she saw a barge full of books moving across the inlet to her village of Lax Kw’alaams, north of Prince Rupert.

    “It was amazing,” the First Nation librarian said.

    Six volunteers from Metro Vancouver helped haul in 14 pallets of books and library furniture so that about 150 school-age children in the small village, 1,000 kilometres north of Vancouver, would get the chance to enhance their literacy.

    “If you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to do anything,” White said, explaining how literacy is the key to more First Nation people advancing into higher education and holding down jobs in the trades, businesses and professions.

    “We’re just so isolated here, especially during COVID. Now we’re better able to foster the love of learning. And to pass on that reading is power. The more you know the better off you are,” said White, describing how many young people in the village are keen to learn about the larger world through the library.

    For the full article, use this link to the Vancouver Sun, or open this PDF version stored on our website.