News

Garderie Autour du Monde

It is with great enthusiasm that we introduce our newest partner: Garderie Autour du Monde. Thank you for sharing the love of reading with the little ones!

New partner

We are pleased to announce our newest partner, Garderie Jardin des Hirondelles. Thank you Andy, Nathaly and the marvelous team of educators for encouraging the joy of reading to children! Happy reading to all!

We had so much fun facilitating the Early Literacy Workshop for the parents from CCS Montreal at Girouard Park in NDG. Thank you so much to all families who participated. Books, stories, reading, and doughnuts – what better way to spend a beautiful summer morning!

New Partner, Association Cigogne

We are pleased to announce our newest partner, Association Cigogne. Thank you for encouraging the joy of reading to children!

Please click on the image to view a list of books that promote diversity and inclusion recommended by the Executive Director, Asha Dixit.

A Message from the Fraser Hickson team on our Commitment to Diversity and Anti-Racism
July 29th, 2020
At the Fraser Hickson Institute, we believe in equality and stand in solidarity with those protesting against anti-Black racism and structural racism in Canada. In this letter, we would like to publicly address the actions our organization is taking to commit to diversity and anti-racism in our programming.
The Fraser Hickson Institute’s mission is to raise literacy levels by empowering partners to instill in children a life-long love of reading and learning from birth and to enable free access to books and animation services. Our project provides daycares and community centres across Montreal with free access to books and volunteer storytime animators. The communities we serve are among the most diverse in Canada, home to people of different races, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic status, gender identities, religious beliefs, and physical abilities. Therefore, we believe that it is vital that these communities have access to books that accurately reflect their diversity.
A step towards addressing systemic inequality is by having more positive representation in literature because stories significantly impact children’s social and identity development. Children’s self-esteem is mostly influenced by how society views the cultural group to which they belong (Naidoo, 2014). When children do not see their culture represented in library collections, they receive the message that their culture is not important enough to be featured in the library (Naidoo, 2014). Therefore, we commit to including more books authored by and featuring people of colour and other diverse identities in our library collection. Going forward, we will be prioritizing diversity and representation when curating our library materials and online resources.
Lastly, to advocate for anti-racism and to help build a greater understanding of the actions we all can take, we have compiled a Black Lives Matter reading list on our Facebook page. We encourage individuals to use this list to become more informed and engaged as we do our part to increase representation in children’s literature in our communities.

Helen Fortin, CEO
Asha Dixit, Operations Manager
Vanessa Foran, Partner and Volunteer Recruitment Coordinator
Marco de Petrillo, Librarian

Naidoo, J. C. (2014). The Importance of Diversity in Library Programs and Material Collections for Children (pp. 1-14,
Rep.). Association for Library Service to Children.

Chamandy Foundation and Foundation of Greater Montreal

We are pleased to announce the receipt of a $50,000 donation from the Chamandy Foundation Fund at the Foundation of Greater Montreal. This very generous donation will aid the project enormously in securing new partners thereby ensuring early literacy access to those who need it the most! A huge Thank You to our wonderful Chamandy donors!

TELUS Friendly Future Foundation

A heartfelt thank you to the TELUS Friendly Future Foundation for supporting the minibiblioPLUS project powered by Fraser Hickson in this COVID 19 time of uncertainty! With their support, we will be able to continue to provide excellent services in both real-time and on-line to our children, parents, and partners. The project emphasizes Early Literacy Development through the provision of free books and animation services to partners. Outcomes of the project include improved literacy levels and instilling a live-long love of reading in children thereby promoting their long-term mental health. Together we can continue to create brighter futures for our children.

We are pleased to announce two new partners: CPE du Quartier Ouest et Do-Ré-Mi Daycare. Thank you for encouraging the joy of reading to children.

We are grateful for the opportunity to share books with our  partners in honor of Family Literacy Day. It was a joyous event ensuring that children have access to books and get excited about reading!