First-ory

I've always wanted to help people. 
Even when I was a kid, that was the thing that stayed constant. I moved around a lot, and as the new Indigenous kid with undiagnosed ADHD, school was challenging. But no matter where I was or what I was struggling with, I always wanted to help people. 
As a young adult, my struggles with mental health, ultimately led me to leave post-secondary school and contributed to a growing battle with addiction. I got to a point where I knew I needed a fresh start, so I moved to Edmonton, got into the trades, and later found a passion for swing dancing. That passion took me all over the world. I'd spend months working and then months travelling, dancing everywhere I could.  
Those travels sparked something unexpected: a love of languages. 
Whenever I visited a new place, I'd try to learn a few phrases out of respect for the people whose home I was visiting. One of the first phrases I'd learn was, "Would you like to dance?". I wasn't trying to become fluent. I just loved the connection that happened when someone heard their own language spoken back to them. 
Years later, while visiting South Korea, I had a realization that changed the course of my life. 
A friend asked me to translate a Korean word into English. I understood exactly what the word meant, but there wasn't a direct English equivalent. It made me wonder what words existed in my own ancestral language that couldn't be translated either. What ways of seeing the world was I missing because I didn't know the language?  
So, I came home and started learning. 
It wasn't easy. 
The same challenges I'd faced throughout school showed up again. I had trouble focusing. I struggled to study. Sometimes I couldn't even hear the differences between sounds in the language. Sitting alone on my couch during the pandemic, I started telling myself that maybe I'd missed my chance. Maybe I was too old. Maybe language learning wasn't for me.  
Then I remembered something my mom taught me when I was very young. 
Whenever there was work to be done in the community, everybody helped. You did what you could, with what you had, to the best of your ability. That lesson stuck with me. If I couldn't yet be a fluent speaker, a teacher, or a translator, I could still contribute. I could help create resources.  
I started with a bilingual baby book. I didn't have experience in publishing or business. But I figured it out because I believed families needed more tools to support language learning at home. I didn’t want my nieces, nephews, and all the young Indigenous learners to struggle like I had. 
Publishing that first book was a huge accomplishment, but I couldn’t celebrate it. At the same time, I was starting a new job, carrying the stress of the project, and grieving the loss of my father. Everything caught up with me, leading to a mental health crisis. I needed help. This was the beginning of something much bigger. 
I was diagnosed with ADHD and started to understand how my mind worked, why I had struggled in school and other areas of my life, and what supports and strategies could help me succeed.  
I realized that many of the resources available weren't designed for the way I learn. ADHD taught me that I learn best through interaction, immediate feedback, and real-world context, not memorization and worksheets. So, I started thinking about which language-learning approaches had worked in my own experiences, and what elements were important for how my brain worked. Then I set out to develop resources that would meet those needs. 
For me, language revitalization has never been just about preserving words. 
Language carries culture, worldview, and identity. It shapes how we understand family, community, responsibility, and relationships. There are concepts in our languages that simply don't exist in English. When we lose a language, we lose ways of seeing the world. When we reclaim a language, we reclaim those perspectives too.  
That's why accessible language revitalization matters so much to me. 
Not everyone has time to attend language classes. Not every community has enough fluent speakers. Not every family has access to resources.  
I want to help remove some of those barriers by creating tools that people can use in their homes, schools, and communities. 
My goal is to make language learning feel possible. Whether you're just starting your journey, supporting your children, or reconnecting with a language that was never passed down to you, I want you to have resources that meet you where you are.  
I want more children to grow up hearing their languages, more families to learn together, and more communities to have the tools they need to strengthen and share their knowledge. 
Because everyone deserves the chance to hear their language spoken, learn it in a way that works for them, and carry it forward.