SRESQ announces new funding for English-speaking communities in Quebec

Photo provided by QCGN (Quebec Community Groups Network)

Today, on April 23, 2018, the Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers (SRESQ) announced $950,000 in funding for five community-based projects. The recipients are the English Language Arts Network (ELAN), the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN), Council for Anglophone Magdalen Islanders, and Eastern Townships Resource Centre (ETRC).

Kathleen Weil, Minister responsible for Access to Information and the Reform of Democratic Institutions and Minister responsible for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers, announced that the funding will increase the amount of government representation and support provided to English-speaking communities across the province.

ELAN has received $230,000 for a two-year project to ‘establish long-term arts education collaborations.’ Based on ELAN’s ACE (Arts, Communities and Education) initiative, this new funding will greatly increase collaborations between artists and educators for the benefit of students. 10 to 15 schools and communities will receive assistance for arts-based projects that will develop transferable skills and creative thinking.

Cultural and Education are natural partners, and both are under provincial jurisdiction, however bureaucratic structures have made it difficult in the past for artists and educators to collaborate. This new funding and partnerships demonstrates that the new Anglo Secretariat is fulfilling its mandate of closer collaboration between government ministries and Quebec’s English-speaking communities.

Resources:

English-Language Arts Network

https://www.quebec-elan.org/about/

English-Language Arts Network ACE Initiative
https://www.quebec-elan.org/elans-ace-initiative-design-test-scale-wrap-up/

School of Community and Public Affairs

https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/scpa.html

Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network

https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/scpa/quescren.html

The Secretariat for relations with English-speaking Quebecers

http://www.mce.gouv.qc.ca/ministere/centre_presse/srqea/2018-04-10-en.htm

http://www.fil-information.gouv.qc.ca/Pages/Article.aspx?lang=en&idArticle=2511247102

Council for Anglophone Magdalen Islanders

https://micami.org/en/

Quebec Community Groups Network

http://qcgn.ca/

Eastern Townships Resource Centre

http://www.etrc.ca/

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.

We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabemowin are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.

ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.