Since the beginning of the

2003-4 school year, the FPFCB

has concentrated most of its

resources in two key sectors,
Early childhood education and
family services and Exogamy. The following is a brief
summary of our main activities and developments in these
two sectors during the past few months.

Early Childhood Education
and Family Services

The minister responsible for early childhood education and
the family, the Honourable Linda Reid, honoured us with
her presence during the FPFCB annual conference in
November 2003. Ms. Reid reaffirmed her department’s
commitment to the development of early childhood education
and family services. On this occasion, she handed the FPFCB
a cheque for $5000, a contribution to the Francophones aux
couches project. This project has been extremely successful.
The kit was designed for new and expectant parents and
contains tips on how to care for the baby as well as
information about the francophone educational system. Since
June 2003, the FPFCB has distributed more than 125 of
these kits to parents associations (by request).

The FPFCB also designed another information kit last fall,
this one intended for families with Kindergarten aged children
enrolled in francophone schools. The kit contains, among
other items, two guides for parents, one each in French and
English. The guides offer information concerning various
aspects of educating children. It also contains information
regarding the various francophone organizations in BC. The
kit comes in a backpack and has been distributed to
approximately 380 families. The FPFCB received logistical

LES JEUNES AU MICRO A
MICROPHONIE

Une reléve a l’horizon? Pourquoi pas.

Au cours de la Semaine de la francophonie en C.-B., neuf

éléves de l’école Gabrielle-Roy ont décidé de venir présenter,

a la radio, une chanson de leur interpréte favori. Entre le 8

et le 12 mars, écoutez ces animateurs en herbe au cours de
im l’émission Microphonie animée par
4}RADIO Danielle Marcotte de 11h30 a 13h30, a
la Premiére Chaine de Radio-Canada.

4 Iufo-Parents

Parent’s Federation Update

By Marc GIGNAC, STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR

support and funding from the CSB (Francophone School
Board) for this project.

Two other projects are keeping us busy in the early childhood
education and family services sector. The first involves
publication of a directory of French language daycare
services available in the province. This directory will be
included in a second that we are currently readying for
publication. The second document will list all of the French
language early childhood education and family services that
are available. Once these directories have been published
and distributed (in late March), we plan to publish the
information in poster form for Francophone schools and
organizations. We have also submitted funding applications
for the next phase, i.e. a needs and feasibility study to
determine which French language services should and/or
could be provided in the near future.

Intercultural Families

Interculturalism (exogamy) is becoming an increasingly
important issue for the FPFCB. Defined as the union between
two people of differing cultural or linguistic backgrounds,
interculturalism is a reality in the BC Francophone schools.
The FPFCB first became involved in this issue during the
spring of 2001, organizing a forum for non-francophone
parents of children enrolled in Francophone schools. We
then took an active part in reviewing a guide for intercultural
families, more than 500 copies of which have been distributed
to Francophone schools. More recently, we asked the CSF
to review its communications policy to accommodate the
reality of intercultural families.

Finally, in spring 2003, we developed a workshop for the
non-francophone partners in intercultural families. This
workshop has been well received; however we believe that
it would be even better if it were led by Anglophone parents
in the same situation. In January 2004, the FPFCB hosted a
training session for the Anglophone parents who were
selected last fall to lead these workshops. Four parents took
the training and reworked the content of last year’s session.
The workshop is based on the /’m with you guide for
intercultural families, which is published by the Fédération
des parents francophones de |’ Alberta. Upon completion of
the training, the four parents demonstrated their commitment
to the success of the workshop by creating the ExTeam
(exogamous team), which will spearhead FPFCB efforts in
this sector from now on. More to follow on this, too...!