La Maison strikes a chord with Niagara francophones
Marc-Yvain Giroux’s face glowed with pride as students from the two French-language secondary schools in Welland produced a radio program in partnership with Radio-Canada’s CJBC station.
It was a significant accomplishment on two levels.
One was for the students, who in Giroux’s words “excelled” in Saturday morning’s four-hour-long production for Radio-Canada’s Grand Lacs cafe, broadcast from East Main Street’s Centre de santé communautaire (Welland Health Care Centre); and the other, for La Maison de la culture francophone du Niagara (MCFN), a project spearheaded by Giroux, who is chair of its board of directors.
“They are like expert radio commentators,” said Giroux of the 13 students from école secondaire Confédération and école secondaire catholique Jean-Vanier as the program wound down. “They are naturals at this.”
For MCFN, the radio program broadcast was a milestone — its “first success” said co-ordinator Mona Babin.
It was the first of several projects the non-profit has planned for itself over the next several months.
Giroux, who has worked tirelessly over decades on behalf of promoting francophone culture, said weeks and weeks of planning and preparation went into it, and it could not have gone off better.
He was joined on site at Saturday’s broadcast by members of the board of directors and by Babin, who was hired in October as co-ordinator, a part-time, two-days-a-week position. She was formerly executive director of l’Association des francophones de la de York région in Aurora. One of her accomplishments there was having Markham designated as the 26th region under the French Language Services Act in Ontario in 2015.
Giroux spoke with passion about the project and the work involved in MCFN. Located at 50 Dorothy St., he said there is significance even in something mundane as the choice of its name.
“The office is named La Maison for a reason: ‘maison’ is a very important word in French-Canadian culture. It is more inviting than a word like ‘centre,’ it conveys warmth, homeyness, home sweet home,” he said.
Such an esprit de corps will assist La Maison in its mission of uniting the French community in all its diversity and preserving and promoting the use of the French language, cultural heritage and French traditions. Forming partnerships with services like libraries and museums, the wellness centre, with post-secondary education, with school boards among others and reaching out to Frenchlanguage associations/clubs are priorities.
A news release said MCFN, created in 2016, “will promote literary, musical and theatrical events and programs and all other French educational and cultural activities.”
It said French youth remain its top priority.
The francophone community represents more than 15,000 people in Niagara, the release said. MCFN’s current French network comprises seven elementary schools and one high school on the French Catholic school board side, four elementary schools and one high school on the French public board side, 11 daycare centres located adjacent to schools, and also 19 schools with French immersion programs.
Including collaboration with Radio-Canada in Saturday morning’s radio program, MCFN has its sights set on starting up a choir of elementary school children and initiating French theatre projects for secondary school students.
“We’re in the process right now of organizing a choir of elementary school age children, we are recruiting right now,” said Giroux. “We’d like at least 30, but if it’s 40 or 45 or 50 it would even be better.”
The choir would be for children across Niagara, he said.
The vision also includes French folk dancing along with the choir.
This brings to mind the days of Welland’s famed Vive la Joie dancers and performers who brought renown to the francophone community and all of Welland in the 1980s, said Giroux.
“Our young people, our youth, can do this again,” he said.
On the theatre side, a francophone theatre company, Théâtre français de Toronto has been recruited as a partner. Giroux said Pierre Simpson, a former Confederation student and graduate of University of Ottawa’s theatre program, will be involved.
A grant from the federal government’s Canadian Heritage is helping defray costs of getting the projects off the ground, Giroux said.
One other priority is finding volunteers for three committees La Maison will have under its umbrella: programming, funding and governance.
A website for MCFN will be available “fairly soon,” said Babin.
Giroux said he sees good things coming through MCFN’s initiatives, both short- and long-term, so he is buoyed by its potential.
“This is what is convincing me to do this at 85,” he said.