The St. Boniface Museum Literacy Project
Pierrette Boily, Curator

Our exhibition was inspired by a project conducted in the 1970s by the St. Boniface museum and the Centre Alpha, part of the community service organization Pluri-elles. At that time, they had mounted a travelling exhibition and recorded the reminiscences of a number of seniors. We also wanted to interest seniors and emphasize the importance of remembering and building on one's linguistic background. Our oral history and cultural heritage are key, after all, to developing pride in our accomplishments.

An advisory committee consisted of four literacy learners (Gisèle Atiyolil, Georges Jubinville, Berthe Lajoie and Madelaine Barrot), S. Léonne Dumesnil, Coordinator of French Literacy Services in Manitoba, Pierette Boily, Curator, and Elaine Tougas, Project Coordinator. We decided on the exhibition's focus and a program consisting of a number of supervised games. The committee also helped the group leader present the program.

The exhibition and program were presented twice in St. Boniface and in the villages of Saint-Malo, îles-des-chênes and Saint-Laurent. The displays created the warmth of an old-time French-Canadian kitchen and each table had a museum artifact that participants were free to handle.

The Senior's Choir interpreted a traditional song, October 1995.

The program consisted of three thematic games, revolving around traditional customs, beliefs and home remedies and was aimed at fostering competition among the tables of participants. In the first game, participants had to answer multiple-choice questions. In the second game, participants had to answer a question based on their knowledge or using their imagination. The third was was a word scramble game, in which they had to match the names of illnesses in one column with old-fashioned remedies in another. At the end of the game, the group leader read out the answers and played a number of sound clips. People greatly enjoyed this interactive presentation, talking, laughing and joking together about their past.

Home remedies on display at the St. Boniface Museum, September 1995

To add some local colour, some participants were asked to sing old songs. In Saint-Malo, the evening included the launching of "Je te raconte mes souvenirs," (I will tell you my memories) a book chronicling the lives of nine seniors from the local parish.

To top off the program, the participants were asked to fill out an evaluation form and to take in a thematic exhibition, and then a light snack was served. Our objectives were to:

• promote literacy;
• emphasize the importance of our seniors' oral history;
• foster pride in our cultural and linguistic heritage;
• assess our language skills

Judging by the evaluation forms, we met our objectives. One of the unexpected results of this program was that Centre Alpha and the Museum are interested in pursuing this partnership. It was also valuable experience for the learners who sat on the advisory committee and assisted in the development of the project.

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