Antigonish resident awarded national literacy prize
Andrew Chacko was rather surprised to recently discover he was named as the province’s recipient of the Council of the Federation Literacy Award.
It’s a prize handed out annually by Canada’s premiers to one person from each province and territory across the country. The Antigonish resident was selected for his leadership, resilience and dedication to literacy and American Sign Language (ASL) as well as his contributions to the community.
“When we realized that the premiers had gotten together and selected (him), it was like, wow, it’s a big deal,” says Antigonish County Adult Learning Association’s Andrew Stalker, who nominated Chacko for the prize. “But it is a small-town story.”
Chacko’s tale truly begins in India, where he was born without hearing but grew up studying Indian Sign Language and learning to read and write short English phrases.
Fourteen years ago, Chacko moved to Canada, where he struggled to settle in and connect with others due to obvious communication challenges and others’ inexperience with ASL.
After moving to Antigonish in 2015 everything changed. Chacko reached out to the Antigonish County Adult
Learning Association (ACALA), set on improving his communication skills to make connections and increase his chances when it came to employment opportunities.
“It was important,” says Chacko via email about the impact of joining ACALA. “I worked on time management, communication skills and working with other people on projects. Teaching and learning ASL helped (me) make many new friends.”
Becoming associated with ACALA improved more than just Chacko’s social life as well. Despite the challenges, Chacko was driven to learn ASL and quickly became proficient enough to begin meeting with other students and instructors bi-weekly to study and practice sign language and he quickly jumped to the forefront of an ever-growing group of ASL learners in Antigonish.
“He came to the organization to improve his reading and writing skills but just sitting down and working in workbooks, it wasn’t really helping anybody,” notes Stalker. “What we find at ACALA is that people really engage with GED (general education development) or learning English if there’s a social aspect (so) with his rudimentary sign language and my rudimentary ASL, we thought that we would start meeting.”
As a result, the pair began running ASL tutorials with Chacko eventually heading up the organization’s employment skills program and becoming more ingrained in the community by obtaining gardening and outdoor maintenance duties for the Town of Antigonish and working with local community groups.
“Andrew’s commitment to not only learn ASL to connect with others but then to be at the forefront of his community’s ASL program, is truly inspiring,” says Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston in a news release. “I admire his leadership as he continuously dedicates his time to make his community more connected and inclusive.”
While Chacko is flattered by the award and attention he has garnered since receiving the Council of the Federation Literacy Award, he simply wants others to just understand the overall empowerment that learning sign language can bring.
“It helped me to meet more people,” he says. “It introduces you to a new culture and community, meet new people and make new friends and family (and) introduces you to the issue of deaf awareness and being able to help when required.”