Community project celebrating Blackfoot language unveiled
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LETHBRIDGE — A three-dimensional community project designed to help celebrate Indigenous language and Reconciliation Week was unveiled at the Galt Museum on Thursday (Sept 12).
Block letters spelling the word “Oki”, which is the Blackfoot word for “welcome”, was created in recognition of the United Nations’ year of Indigenous Language. The project was a collaboration between the Reconciliation Lethbridge Advisory Committee (RLAC) and the Heart of Our City Committee (HOCC). It was manufactured in the city and designed to be mobile so that it can be moved to different locations and events in the downtown.
Jordan Head, Heart of Our City Committee member and Blackfoot Knowledge Keeper, hopes to bring greater awareness to the fact that Downtown, like the rest of Lethbridge, is located on traditional Blackfoot territory. “We want to continue demonstrating that the Downtown is an open and welcoming environment for a diversity of uses, users, and cultures.”
RLAC Co-Chair, Amanda Scout, noted, “Language plays a huge part in building community, in the transferal of knowledge and in the empowerment of Indigenous people.”
