About Us
Lingít Háa Kusteeyí is the path for our people.
Children of the Taku Society is a non profit that was started by Taku River Tlingit members in 2012. Many of our Board Members and staff live in the heart of Taku River Tlingit traditional territory. We were motivated to join together and create this society to maintain and protect the culture, traditions and heritage of the Taku River Tlingit. These concepts are all interconnected for the Tlingit people. Our food, language, songs, dances, storytelling, and ceremony are intrinsically tied to the land.
The majority of the programming currently facilitated by the Children Of The Taku Society is in the area of Lingít language revitalization. This journey began in 2018, and was the continuation of work begun by volunteers in 2013.
We are in the process of developing a 6 textbook sequential curriculum designed to bring a learner from no language to an advanced speaker, that is modelled after the Salish Curriculum Project the “Paul Creek Curriculum.”
The textbooks are based on Elder recordings and designed to be delivered in an intensive immersion classroom. All of our language materials are to be shared as open-source learning material and made freely available to all Lingít communities, teachers, and learners.
Graduates of this program will fulfill a wider strategy of weaving multiple strands of language acquisition together within the larger web of Tlingit language revitalization. As language catalysts, the graduates of this program are empowered and taught to create new learning opportunities in order to continue to use and acquire language and bring the language home.
Our long-term vision is to build resources to support cohorts of new speakers that will restart the intergeneration fluency transfer system in the homes of all Lingít communities. This will then extend to the schools’, workplaces and Lingít governance within in our communities.
As beginner speakers all mistakes within our work are our own. We are honoured to work, learn, teach, and speak the language of our ancestors. We are grateful to all those who came before us, that we might one day once again raise our babies in the language.
Gunalchéesh
Meet the Team
K’èdukà Jack
Executive Director
K’èdukà Jack was born a child of the Taku, and is daughter of Yvonne Jack, and grandchild of Evelyn Jack of the Yanyeidí Clan. She is a Taku River Tlingit, and was raised in a strong family…
Neilatóo.atsien Allan
Executive Coordinator
Neilatóo.atsien Allan was born to a single mother in the aftermath of the Canadian Residential Schools. She grew up amongst her people the Taku River Tlingit in Atlin BC…
Sherri Green
Curriculum Director
Sherri Green enjoys a good laugh and finds joy in many aspects of life. Evidence of this is seen in the Lingít name she was given: At Shoog̱u Shaawát (laughing woman)…
Jenoah Esquiro
Community Coordinator
Jenoah Esquiro is a member of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, of the Yanyedí Clan. She was raised in Vancouver, where she attended schooling in multiple post-secondary institutes…