The National Ambassador Youth Forum is coming to an end. Held from August 13 to 18 on the campus of Mount Saint-Vincent University in Halifax, it brought together 35 young people from across Canada.
Happy National Acadian Day! The kids celebrated August 15 with a typical Acadian dinner at the Café de l'Acadie in Peggy's Cove.
An inspiring speech by the Honorable Lena Metlege Diab launched the festivities at the opening ceremony on Monday August 14. The week's program included activities on language insecurity, leadership and project management; debates on the issues surrounding bilingualism, games and many other activities aimed at boosting participants' confidence and sense of belonging. Starting this fall, the young people will become French ambassadors in their schools for the 2022-2023 school year. Their role will be to organize French-language activities in their school to promote bilingualism in their community.
Over the course of the week, the future ambassadors of bilingualism were able to forge friendships with Francophones and Francophiles from across the country. For many, it's the beginning of a community in French outside school. For French for the Future, it was also an opportunity to bring together members of the Board of Directors to consult with young people as part of the organization's 2023-2028 strategic planning.
To conclude the stay, Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne and the Honorable Colton Leblanc, Member of the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia, passed encouraging messages to the youth at the closing ceremony. The ambassadors return home with their heads full of memories and renewed confidence in their linguistic identity, each having developed their own personal definition of what it means to be bilingual.