TakingITGlobal

Cree Visual Card Project SHEILA COOK For Sheila Cook, the writing was on the wall. A community leader and President of her university student association, Sheila decided to apply her leadership skills towards something close to home: the revitalization of Cree language and culture. "The Cree Visual Card project is a resource tool that helps Indigenous families, particularly First Nation's Plains and Woodland Cree people. This project was aimed to guide Cree families in learning the language at home or for educators to have an extra resource of the language in school." Sheila printed 72 cards with Cree verbs and nouns, each coming with a QR link to a YouTube video of her providing examples of pronunciation. "[The] Cree Visual Cards have had a profound impact in revitalizing the Cree language for the Cree community," Sheila explained. The project impacted at least 80 people and connected Sheila with people all across the prairies. Her project is a step towards the sustainable development goals of Good Health and Well-being (Goal 3), Quality Education (Goal 4), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Goal 16). "It made me proud because I understand how language is a part of the Indigenous identity. It is also vital to revitalize the language due to governmental policies that took and stripped the language by forcing assimilation practices. Being able to give back and find approaches to help regain the language is an impactful opportunity I was able to achieve." Sheila plans to continue exploring language cards as a medium to revitalize Cree language and culture. "The future [of the project] is to give back for the next 7 generations. I see my project continuing because there is so much more that could be added, such as kinship systems and roles." 39 SPROUT IDEAS FELLOWSHIP IMPACT REPORT ARTS & CULTURE

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