Dear friends of the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre,

This is an invitation to the 4^th Annual Gwen Bear Memorial Lecture taking place on Thursday January 28^th.

As those who knew Elder Gwen Bear can attest, she was an avid speaker of the Wolastoqey language, and a passionate language and culture teacher, one of whose great ambitions was to see more youth speaking the language.

This year, we are proud and thrilled to host four grade nine language carriers from Kingsclear First Nation. Baillie Sacobie, Theo Polchies, Amber Solomon and Brooke Sacobie, along with their former George Street Middle School teacher, Megan Young Jones, will share their experiences of authoring and illustrating Weyossisok, a Wolastoqey language storybook with our audience. Along with a book reading, these young women and man will also discuss why they felt actively resisting language loss was vitally important to them, their families and community. Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event, with a book signing to follow the lecture.

So mark your calendars and please join us at this free public event for a night of celebrating the Wolastoqey language and culture and honouring the work of these young students and Elder Gwen Bear.

The lecture will take place at 7:00pm in Room 143, Faculty of Education, Marshall d’Avray Hall, 10 MacKay Drive, UNB Campus Fredericton. Please join us for a reception preceding the lecture in the cafeteria at 6:00 pm.

Shared on behalf of:

Trenton Augustine, Aboriginal Recruitment & Marketing Officer, Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre

T 506 447-3337 E Trenton.Augustine@unb.ca