Blog

Arriving in a new country as a refugee is much different than arriving as an immigrant. In the first case you will accept the first chance to get yourself and your family away from a war zone. In the other case you make your selection based on deep thinking and you prepare what is needed to start your new life.  As a refugee, once you make your first step you will start wondering and worry what… Read more.

Libraries have become so much more than stacks of books and librarians telling you to keep your voice down. They have expanded into busy learning centres for sharing information and building community.   From renting DVDs and audiobooks to attending library programs, people enter a library for lots of different reasons. The diversity of library patrons relates to why people choose to visit their… Read more.

Hi all! My name is Catriona, I was the summer student at the NWT Literacy Council in 2018 and was fortunate to return as one of two summer students this year. I love working at the Council. By far, one of the best opportunities I’ve been given is to go on all the Bison Bus trips in the southern portion of the territory.  In June, Charlotte and I took the Bison Bus to Lady Evelyn Falls in Kakisa… Read more.

Happy NWT Literacy Week! As the weather gets colder, you and your children will spend more time inside. Fall can be a great time to cuddle up with a book and practice reading in any language. Here is a week-long challenge you can do with children at home or during a family literacy event. Each day of the week has a theme with suggestions of how you can use an NWT Literacy Council resource to… Read more.

NWT Literacy Week is September 22 to 28. Each year NWT residents spend the last week of September participating in fun literacy events and promoting the development of essential skills. Our theme for NWT Literacy Week this year is: Celebrate Indigenous Languages! The United Nations declared 2019 The International Year of Indigenous Languages. All year long we have promoted this special occasion… Read more.

My summer job with the NWT Literacy Council was an exceptionally diverse work experience. It was also an enlightening entry point to the NWT for a new northerner like me. I was unsure of what to expect from this summer position when I first began in June. I had never really held a true ‘office job’ which left me questioning what my summer would look like. Now, at the end of my summer at the… Read more.

It’s less than a month until the NWT election on October 1. And just over six weeks till the federal election on October 21. It’s important to start now to find out who the candidates are, what each candidate stands for, and to decide who to vote for. Friday is the last day for candidates in each of the 19 NWT electoral districts to file their nomination papers. After Friday, we will know who… Read more.

Summer slide? It's not a new game, nor something you find in a playground. It's the brain drain that happens during the holiday months when kids are out of class. Academic skills tend to slip away during the summer if students aren't actively engaged in learning.  Math, spelling, and reading skills suffer the most. Studies have found that learning loss over the summer can be equal to as much as… Read more.

Many of us in the north took a collective deep breath at the release last week of the report of the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. The report lays out what Indigenous people and our allies have understood for a long time. Concrete and systemic change must happen for Indigenous women and girls, in fact, for all Indigenous people to enjoy the safety and security taken… Read more.

Last October, a fire destroyed the Rockhill apartment building in Yellowknife. Along with the YWCA’s GirlSpace program, 33 families lost their homes. GirlSpace lost their library of books focused on female empowerment. After the fire, community members rallied together to find ways to support the families that were displaced and to help GirlSpace get up and running again. I wasn’t sure what I… Read more.