As part of First Nation Public Library Week, the Ontario Library Service is providing free programming during the week of October 2 - 6.

SKAÍHWA’T  |  DGOGAABWI  |  STANDING TOGETHER

The 2023 theme describes the act of coming together as one group to understand and support each other. The act of solidarity is described in three languages: 

• SKAÍHWA’T - Mohawk - the concept of consensus on one matter, standing together
• DGOGAABWI - Anishinaabemowin - stand with others, participate with others
• STANDING TOGETHER - English 

Kitchener Public Library will be screening these pre-recorded events and providing space for engaging with them. Links to the virtual recordings will be available on the Ontario Library Service's website.

First Nation Communities READ Authors Panel

Christine Miskonoodinkwe-Smith is a Saulteaux woman from Peguis First Nation and the author of “These Are the Stories: Memories of a 60s Scoop Survivor” published by Kegedonce Press in December 2021. She is an author, editor, writer, and journalist who graduated from the University of Toronto with a specialization in Aboriginal Studies in June 2011 and went on to receive her Master’s in Education in Social Justice in June 2017.

Her first non-fiction story “Choosing the Path to Healing” appeared in the 2006 anthology Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces. She has written for the Native Canadian, Anishinabek News, Windspeaker, FNH Magazine, New Tribe Magazine, Muskrat Magazine and the Piker Press. She collected and edited 17 Sixties Scoop Survivor stories and the anthology “Silence to Strength” was just released October 31, 2022. She has also co-edited the anthology Bawaajigan with fellow Indigenous writer Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, is currently working on a YA Novel and thinking of her next project.