Youth Today, Language Leaders Tomorrow

Overview

The Youth Today, Language Leaders Tomorrow (YTLLT) is a two-year language training program for youth employed full-time to learn their languages, contribute to the strength of their languages, pursue a career in languages, and become language champions to carry their language into the future. This program takes the stance that the long-term success of community-driven language and cultural revitalization activities in the territory depends critically on supporting an emerging generation of younger speakers of YFNs languages who have the capacity and dedication to lead significant social and institutional change over the coming decades.

Immediate Program Aims

The aims of the Youth Today: Language Leaders Tomorrow program are to:

Directly contribute to the development of new First Nation language speakers.
Support language documentation and preservation for critically endangered Indigenous languages through the creation of permanent language resources.
Support community-based language programs, language advocacy, and language promotion.
Support language education and language resource accessibility.
Support capacity and training for community-based language revitalization.

The current cohort of the Youth Today, Language Leaders Tomorrow program runs from August 2024 – March 2026 with the possibility of an extension into the following years. During this period, language learners will be paired with mentors, instructors and fluent speakers to spend a minimum of 20 hours per week learning the language.

Program Benefits for Youth Language Trainees:

• The opportunity to interact with learning centred around Indigenous ways of knowing;
• Interaction with cultural teachings, Elders, and fluent speakers;
• Skills essential to continue with a career in language work. This training includes an introduction on teaching languages, development of language resources (videos, books, activities), research skills (Indigenous research, language documentation), and much more;
• Compensation for time spent learning a Yukon First Nation language.

2024 Language Cohorts

The second Youth Today: Language Leaders Tomorrow program supports three of the eight Yukon First Nation langauge groups: Dän Kʼí (Northern Tutchone), Hän, and Tlingít.

Media & Releases:

www.cyfn.ca/news-release-second-cohort-of-immersion-students-start-language-program/

2021 – 2023 Cohort

The first cohort of the Youth Today: Language Leaders Tomorrow program supported five of the eight Yukon First Nation langauge groups: Dän Kʼí (Northern Tutchone), Kaska, Dän Kʼè (Southern Tutchone), Hän, and Tlingít.