In 1980, when the Freedom School began, it was more like we had a community political uprising. The school began around 1980. People didn't want to send their kids to the board-run schools, the federally-run schools. The people at that time decided they wanted to take education into their own hands, and I like what she said about the ceremonial part, because that's what the Freedom School was pretty much based on. There's no separation of language and culture.
The Freedom School, when it began, didn't have much money. It was just people who wanted their kids to learn the language. The parents hadn't learned the language, but they wanted a place that could provide their kids with the opportunity to learn it.
The Freedom School became an immersion program in 1985, and I became a teacher in 1986. I think we were making about $200 Canadian a week. We were there for years. Some teachers before me were volunteering their time. They got food baskets. These are the kinds of struggles we have with our language situation.
We have a population of 15,000 people, and we're lucky if we have 700 speakers. It sounds like a lot compared to other native communities, because so many have lost so many speakers.
Our language is at a critical state. I don't know if anyone here is bilingual, if you speak French and English. What if all of a sudden there were no French speakers left? You can't find teachers to teach French in the schools and you can't find interpreters. Well, that's the situation we're in today.
At the Freedom School, people said we didn't have real teachers because they didn't go to school to learn about.... The school, since its operation, has actually produced a lot of fluent speakers, and some have become teachers in the school.
The heart and the desire and the commitment to the language is in our community, but we are always struggling with going ahead.
It's sad to say. It's always that we lack the funding to hire teachers or....