2007
April 21-23, 2007
Host city - Toronto, Ontario
Nineteen bilingual student leaders from across Canada descended on Toronto for four days in April to discuss how learning French has enriched their lives. French for the Future’s National Ambassador Youth Forum (NAYF) provided these students with the opportunity to debate the advantages and responsibilities of living in a complex country with two official languages.
The purpose of the NAYF is to bring together students from across the country who have bilingualism as one of their goals. They come as ambassadors from their local communities; after their experience at the NAYF, they return home as ambassadors of linguistic duality. Joanna Campion, Acting Executive Director of French for the Future, praised the students by saying that she was confident that “such motivated, dynamic, and intelligent people are ideal ambassadors of bilingualism.”
The visiting ambassadors took full advantage of the opportunity to discover Toronto through visits to the ROM, CN Tower, and the Ontario Science Centre, where they received Francophone-led tours and were further exposed to the bilingual face of the city through other extra-curricular activities including attending a French-language play and a stop at the Alliance Française. They also played a leading role in French for the Future’s Toronto Local Annual Forum, held April 24, at Glendon College.
Local French for the Future forums were also held in nine other cities across Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax. Approximately 1900 students from 130 high schools attended these events. Most of the students were from Grade 11 and Grade 12 immersion programmes.
These ten forums, together with the NAYF, also served to mark French for the Future’s 10th anniversary. The organization was launched as a grass roots response to the 1995 Quebec Referendum’s razor thin vote. Its mandate is to promote linguistic duality in Canada by highlighting its positive social and career benefits and by forging linguistic and cultural links among secondary school students.
The program for the event can be viewed here.
Below are a selection of photographs from the NAYF Gala Dinner at Grano restaurant (click to enlarge):
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The ambassadors, with the help of the National Film Board, created four short films designed to explore the theme of linguistic duality. Click here to view the movies.