Faculty and Staff Profile
Sara Child
Faculty/Departments:
Adult Basic Education,
Humanities,
Indigenous Education,
Social Sciences
Positions/Titles:
Facilitator,
Faculty,
Researcher
Area of Expertise:Early Childhood Education, English, Human Service Worker, Indigenous Language Fluency,
Kwak'wala Language
Sara Child has been an educator for well over 30 years. She is passionate about Truth
and Reconciliation and in particular the role that Indigenous language revitalization
must play in achieving the Calls to Action. Sara has developed numerous Indigenous
language courses as well as NIC's newly implemented Indigenous Language Fluency Certificate.
The certificate is a direct response to the TRC Calls to Action to develop certificate
and diploma fluency building programs at the local college level. Of particular importance,
Sara designed the program to support a local Indigenous pedagogy and approach to learning.
As part of the certificate, Sara developed a dual language science course to explore
local Indigenous land-based knowledge. The development of that course was a deliberate
move to advance the recognition that Indigenous knowledge systems and sciences need
to be honoured as equal to Western perspectives and sciences.
Sara has also participated in numerous research projects to support the Indigenization
and decolonization of research. In 2017, she completed a year-long research project
gathering knowledge from Indigenous Elders in her home community of the North Island.
That research with elders explored leadership concepts in Kwak̓wala, which were infused
into a youth leadership framework, that Sara completed as part of her Master’s in
Indigenous Language Revitalization. Since then Sara developed a comprehensive language
revitalization research project called the Sanyakola Project. The proposal was submitted
to Mitacs and the Sanyakola Project began in 2020. This research has brought together
five Indigenous scholars to explore the development of a comprehensive language revitalization
strategy, explore Kwakwaka̱'wakw Pedagogy in land-based environments, and support
the development of Artificial Intelligence and speech-to-text technology to support
the revitalization efforts for Kwak̓wala. A critical aspect of this groundbreaking
research is that it is led, designed and delivered by an all-Indigenous research team.
“Exploring leadership through a localized lens is vitally important,” said Child.
“Our languages encode the values, beliefs and codes of conduct that guide us to live
our lives in wellness. Restoration of our language will help to restore relationships
that were built upon firm foundations of respect, reciprocity, responsibility and
reverence for the natural world, people, places and the land. In my humble opinion,
there can be no truth to truth and reconciliation without the full support for the
revitalization of Indigenous languages.”
Sara was also an instructor in NIC's Awi'nakola land-based ABE program that is offered
at Mixalakwila Campus; the program sprung out of the Truth and Reconciliation talks among
campus staff. Sara is very proud to be a part of a program that brings together students
and staff in a holistic learning environment, draws on local elders, culture, language
and student strengths and is a response to the calls to action of TRC. In the last
few years, Sara has also helped to develop and launch the first-ever Indigenization
plan for NIC in 2021 and sees this as the next vital step toward the transformation
of the college that is required for NIC to become truly Indigenous serving.