It’s always sad when working in Canadian Francophonie to realize that despite your best efforts, you can’t stop this loss of dynamics in Francophonie.
Nancy Juneau explained in an interview for Radio Canada.
The French-Canadian Federation of Culture “promotes and defends the place of arts and culture in the Canadian and Acadian French-speaking world”.
Nancy Juneau defends that the arts and culture sector plays an important role in the sustainable development and vitality of francophone communities.
Our Pan-Canadian mandate outside of Quebec is to ensure cultural vitality exists in our communities across the country
explains Nancy Juneau.
The arts and culture sector is recognized in Bill C-13 on Official Languages as an essential vector for the development and growth of individuals within communities.
The new version of the law […] confirms the cultural and artistic sector as an essential sector for the survival of the French language in our communities. Then there is the whole parallel exercise on the Official Languages Action Plan
emphasizes Nancy Juneau.
” How can the law be translated into concrete initiatives on the ground? And this is where the culture and arts sector becomes an important player. »
We must convince the federal authorities working on the action plan on the official languages of the need to provide better support to our cultural and artistic organizations in this area, so that they can further curb this assimilation and this rate of loss of the French language in the country
says Nancy Juneau.
Concrete Actions
The Fédération culturelle canadienne-française promotes concrete measures to develop the artistic and cultural sector in the Francophonie minority.
In an August 25 press release, she proposes two priorities. On the one hand, act on the health of organizations to strengthen the capacities of the artistic and cultural ecosystem, and on the other hand, build francophone cultural identity by focusing on education and culture.
The union asks greater investment in artistic education in French and support for cultural and artistic activities in schools, notably through the improvement of the PassepART program
.
PassepART is a microfinance program open to all francophone schools in a minority environment.
The aim of this program is to facilitate access to the arts in schools. The first three years were very successful. I think that last year we served 90% of the country’s francophone schools
says Nancy Juneau.
This program allows young people to get in touch with their language, to listen, see and hear, but also to create
emphasizes the President of the Kulturbund.
Another La Rucher project is underway. It is a social innovation laboratory in education that aims to to address the lack of art teachers in other francophone schools in minority, urban and rural communities
explains Nancy Juneau.
” Not all schools have access to teachers, either art teachers or educational artists. »
Art as a factor in worldview
The issue of developing the arts in French for the francophone communities goes beyond simply observing access to art.
For Nancy Juneau, it is also a question of identity and social construction. A French-speaking visual artist perceives the world and his art through the way language shapes his brain
She believes.
The arts are a factor of integration in the francophone minorities, as pointed out by Lou-Anne Bourdeau, interim director of the Maison des artistes visuals francophones in Winnipeg.
I think that a place where people feel that this cultural identity is not only allowed, but that we encourage it, that we also encourage being artists and francophones, is like a key to ensuring integration [dans une communauté]
She says.
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