Friday, June 19

Blackfoot Elder and Glenbow educator Sheldon First Rider shares his story as a residential school survivor and his path to developing the Blackfoot Language program at Glenbow.

We are so grateful to Sheldon for giving us permission to share this video for our #GlenbowFromHome series during Aboriginal Awareness Week Calgary.

Since 2018, First Rider has spearheaded a Blackfoot Language program at Glenbow which is offered as part of the larger Indigenous Studies school program. In his eight years as an educator at Glenbow, he estimates that Indigenous programming has collectively reached approximately 150,000 students, 12 – 15,000 of those in the more recently introduced Blackfoot Language program.