A vending machine may seem like an unexpected item to undo centuries of colonialism, but this is not an old vending machine. It still spits out sweets, but not the sweets you’re used to.
Indigenous books from the vending machine are “culturally relevant” to children, said Sheree Plain, coordinator of the Akwe: Go program at N’Amerind Friendship Center in London, Ont.
Plain works with indigenous children between the ages of seven and twelve. It helps them keep their cultural traditions alive while living in the city and away from their community.
Books are free. For a couple of brass tokens, which the friendship center delivers, young people can open a personal window into their own culture, one unrestricted by non-indigenous voices, something Plain said he had never grown up with.
8-year-old boy inspired by dispensed books
“When you don’t have that as a kid, you almost feel like you don’t belong,” he said. “It makes us see. It makes our children see. I think I’ll cry thinking about it.”
Sheree Plain, coordinator of the Akwe: Go program at the N’Amerind Friendship Center in London, says the books offer children a window into their own culture that they never had when they were growing up. (Colin Butler / CBC News)
It is an emotional time for both adults and children.
Eight-year-old Kaida Lynn Aquash was the first customer of the machine, and from the moment she filed her “book rake” tokens, she felt a startle of anticipation.
“I jumped because I haven’t used a vending machine in a long time.”
You can imagine many things. You can make your own books. You can have dreams.- Kaida-Lynn Aquash, 8
Over time, you will learn more about the machine, how books are distributed, and the stories they tell: their stories.
“You can imagine a lot of things. You can make your own books. You can have dreams,” the young man said.
“I can learn our language from these books and I feel inspired, and I love it.”
Putting tokens in the machine is a symbolic gesture
It’s music for the ears of Brian Warren, the founder and director of Start2Finish, a charity that helps foster children’s well-being through fitness and education.
Brian Warren is the CEO and founder of Start2Finish, a Canadian charity that helps promote the well-being of children through fitness and education. It has one of the brass tokens used to buy books at the vending machine. (Colin Butler / CBC News)
“Kids love tokens and getting things done,” he said. “Something comes up, what we’re saying is,‘ Literacy will be the same. ’They’ll look at it and read it in culturally relevant terms.
“Colonialism is someone who tells history, but what they will see is someone who is a first nation telling history.”
Warren said he hopes the vending machine will help connect children with their own culture in a way their parents have never done before, and that by inserting tokens into the machine, they understand a symbolic gesture of investing in their own culture to gain knowledge.
“Once you see yourself, you can believe it too. This is where we say, ‘Yes, you have a strong connection to learning and performance.’
“Once we help them learn to read, we start them on the path to a better future.”