As a community, we do our best to.... It starts with leadership. We speak our language at our leadership table. We've started to do many things at the Mi'kmaq language studio. We're really focused on that and translating signs around the community, having people hear and see more signage around the community. That's one thing, seeing, and supporting whatever initiatives we have in the community. If I speak, sometimes I speak my language.
It's very challenging. There are a lot of successful things. We try everything. We're working with MK. We work with our partners to make our language work. We try creative things, from music to translating movies, as Tom and Carol Anne are doing. Also, they're reaching out to TikTok, having young people help them along the way. We're trying to stay on top of the game.
One thing I see that I feel is working.... This is very challenging compared to when I was younger, because then everybody spoke. Everybody was conversing. These days, everybody is talking through the phone, and there's not much conversation from our people today. We need to develop programs for young people. COVID really wasn't a good help because we didn't visit each other.
We go back to our culture. We talk to each other and have these programs, like tea and toast programs, and meet with elders, those types of things. Today we have podcasts. We have all this technology that we can really tap into.
There is one thing that really struck me about one of my councilmen. His name is Joef Bernard, and he's a land-based person. He's always on the land with his son. His son is three years old. His son is fluent in Mi'kmaq. He would always teach him about the land, about the medicines. He is very fluent. One thing that really struck me is that he told me he tries to confuse him when they watch cartoons, because everyone is watching cartoons. Most kids are watching the iPads and those things. He told me that he puts on a cartoon that's not in English. It would be in a different language, like Spanish or other languages, just to confuse him because kids only watch the cartoon, the colours and everything. He would do that. He was hoping that there would be more product out there, cartoons translated for toddlers, because they are like sponges. Three-, four- and five-year-olds are like sponges. Whatever they hear and see....
It's like a trend. Right now, the trend is that everybody is speaking English. People will just.... With all that work we do in immersion and all that families do to try to really help their children speak the language, once they go out in the outside world, they get involved in the trends, speaking English or whatever slang we sometimes hear in certain communities.
That's basically it. I think land-based culture is also key, teaching our children about the land and its terms—