Imagine … babies, toddlers, caregivers, books, games and a bison all together! Playing, singing, telling stories, reading books, doing crafts and laughing. That’s what you’ll see when our Bison Bus Mobile Family Centre goes on the road.
What is the Bison Bus? It's a mobile family centre that will tour northern communities that are accessible by road. We will offer free family literacy programs to families and their children 0 – 6 years. We’ll also train more community members to plan and run family literacy nights. The Bison Bus will be a comfortable place designed to engage families by combining learning and fun.
The Bison Bus will let us work face-to-face with parents and other caregivers, and give them resources that will help them support their children’s language and literacy development. Our trained coordinators will help parents and other caregivers learn why early literacy development is important, and what they can do to support that development, especially oral language development.
Many families don’t have the access to literacy resources that families in southern Canada have. We want to change that. Families will receive free books and other literacy resources to take home to start their own home library. Day homes, child care centres and early learning programs will receive a tiny library of books for their centre. The NWT Literacy Council can provide rich early learning experiences that will help improve outcomes for young children by taking our programs and resources to where families live.
Can you imagine children's reaction when the Bison Bus drives right into their community? Children will see the Bison Bus coming and will want to ‘get on board’!
We think the Bison Bus is the best way to take our family literacy work out to NWT communities on a more regular, affordable basis. We need the Aviva Fund to pay for the bus, insurance and supplies such as books, craft material and toys. We already have the family literacy staff.
Please vote for this exciting idea. You’ll be proud that you helped put the Bison Bus on NWT roads.
You can vote each day until October 23, 2015.
-- Kathryn Barry Paddock
