Aboriginal childcare offers Inuktitut to Montreal tots

The Rising Sun childcare centre in Verdun operates in three languages; English, French and Inuktitut. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

MONTREAL — “Caribou, caribou, do you have skin?”

Educator Gina Adams sings the Inuktitut song to group of nine squirming preschoolers seated around her.

The walls of the daycare room they sit in are covered in images of coloured ulus, Arctic animals and amautik-clad women.

The scene would be a common one at any childcare centre in Nunavut or Nunavik, but you’ll find this particular group in the Montreal neighbourhood of Verdun.

The Rising Sun childcare centre opened its doors last year to the city’s aboriginal families. There are two centres like it in the province – the other one is in Val d’Or.

But while other First Nations children blend together in the centre’s different classrooms, Rising Sun operates an exclusively Inuit program with cultural programming in Inuktitut.

There are 16 spaces for preschoolers aged two to five in the Inuit classroom. As each classroom at Rising Sun is named after native animals, this group is known as the “seals.”

Not all the seals are Inuit in origin though; in fact, on this particular morning there are only three Inuit children out of a group of 10.

Rising Sun is designated as a CPE or acentre de la petite enfance, a provincially subsidized centre that charges families $7 a day for care. With 80 spaces available, about half those spaces are open to anyone in the neighbourhood.

In the seals room, there is a diverse mix of Asian, Hispanic, white and Inuit children. For many of them, Inuttitut is a fourth language.

“Sometimes I have to translate when they look at me like ‘What did you say?’” said Adams, who is from Kuujjuaq. “But I do a lot of physical motions to show them what I mean.”

Adams’ assistant educator, Loik, is getting a crash course in Inuttitut during the two weeks he has worked with the group.

He says he’s picked up some simple phrases that Adams posted on the wall such as sanikkuvimmut (put it in the garbage) and akkaniaritsi (wash your hands).

Those phrases are even enough to trip up Leetia Kelly, whose three-month-old son David and two-year-old Zion attend Rising Sun.

Kelly was born in Iqaluit but moved to Montreal at age four. Although her mother spoke Inuktitut, Kelly never really used the language.

But she’s excited to expose her boys to it.

“I’m really quite happy with (the centre),” Kelly said. “Zion is exposed to Inuktitut on a daily basis now. It’s not the same dialect (as Nunavut) but when he has contact with my mom or her friends now, I can see them communicate.

“Hopefully one day I’ll learn it too.”

Kelly serves as the president of the Rising Sun’s board of directors, a chance for her to take advantage of the centre’s open-door policy for parents and grandparents, while helping to direct the centre’s future.

She’d like to see more Inuit and First Nations educators working at the centre — there are only a handful — but she’s confident that will happen as the program evolves.

“I don’t think it’s completely out there yet,” Kelly said.

Most Nunavimmiut aren’t aware that they can enrol their babies or preschool-aged children at Rising Sun for a period while they receive health care in Montreal, Kelly said.

“But it’s exciting to see there’s another resource for the Inuit community.”

Rising Sun’s director Alana-Dawn Phillips said that Rising Sun childcare centre was a long-time in the making.

The neighbourhood’s aboriginal families used to have access to a federally-funded pre-school program called Head Start.

When this program ended, families lobbied hard for an aboriginal childcare centre, Phillips said.

Today, Head Start is integrated into Rising Sun’s program, meaning the centre receives both federal and provincial funding.

Although about 50 per cent of the daycare’s children are non-aboriginal, Phillips said children who are aboriginal travel from all over the city to attend Rising Sun.

“We’ve got families from Chateauguay, the west island and the east end,” she said. “That percentage will change, slowly. It’s only been a year and a half and we’re getting better.”

Cildren at the Rising Sun childcare centre keep busy by riding bikes. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)