Kanatakon Students Create Book

Kaweienon:ni Margaret Peters had already been working on a book for her students when one day she found herself getting a whole lot of help. An organization called “The Mighty Pen” found AMBE online and contacted them wanting to help their schools, specifically the Mohawk Language programs.

From their website, “The Mighty Pen” was created to address the lack of opportunity for children in the developing world that don’t have access to even the most basic forms of public education. Having started with the Nepali community, The Mighty Pen expanded to the Tibetan community of Boudhanath in 2011 and is currently exploring opportunities to launch its award-winning program elsewhere, including among Canada’s First Nations. This is where The Mighty Pen mission was born: to be a global leader in providing local language literacy programs to empower youth.”

A while later, after much work from students and staff, a book “Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen” completely in Kanien’keha, was born.

Tekahionhake Teddy Peters’ 3/4 grade class and Kaweienon:ni Margaret Peters’ 5/6 grade Mohawk class did the artwork for the book. They drew pictures to go with sequences of the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen. There were about 100 copies of the book printed and some also went to the Akwesasne Freedom School. Margaret said they hope to be doing more books with The Mighty Pen next year. Margaret said, “I want people to know this is an oral language based program. We use reading and writing as a tool to get the kids speaking the language, which is the end goal.” About the book she said, “I’m very pleased with how the book turned out. I was surprised with the end result, it’s so professional looking!”

About the book, Principal Alice King said, “I’m very impressed and proud of the students’ artwork. I’d like to see more books! Margaret is such a good resource person. The possibilities are endless with her and all the ideas she brings to the program.”

Throughout the summer Indian Time will feature pages of the book with some of the Kanatakon students’ artwork in our Student Submission column.