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Shirley-Pat Chamberlain Profile

Dubbed the ‘original champion spark plug’ by His Honour, Steven L. Point, the 28th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, Shirley-Pat Chamberlain (nèe Gale) is a passionate literacy advocate and is honoured to act as co-lead with Bob Blacker for Write to Read BC. Shirley-Pat is a woman of mixed heritage and is Tl’esqox na whelh deni heelen (adoptee of Tl’esqox). She brings over 20 years of leadership, community planning and development, fund development, grant writing, project management, facilitation, teaching, and mentorship. Shirley-Pat is a proud member of the Rotary Club of Steveston and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award in 2012 for outstanding volunteerism.

Shirley-Pat has built strong and meaningful relationships with each Indigenous community or Nation that she has had the privilege and honour of working across the Pacific Northwest as well as non-Indigenous organizations, communities, and governments. She is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Edinburgh.

Bob Blacker Profile

Bob Blacker Team Leader

Bob is a retired New Westminster Police Inspector. He joined Rotary in 1996 and has served as Club President. In 2008 – 2009, Bob became District Governor for Rotary District 5040, made up 54 Clubs across British Columbia. In 1998, Bob became an Honorary Aide de Camp (HADC) to the Lt. Governor of British Columbia. In 2007 His Honour, Steven Point, and Bob started to work together to get books into isolated First Nations Communities in British Columbia. In 2012, after his term as Lt. Governor, H.H. Steven Point returned to the Bench as a Provincial Court Judge. As a result, Bob carried on as the Project Leader. Both men never dreamt that WRITE TO READ would be as successful as it is today.

Rocky Pines near Merritt

W2R ROCKY PINES LEARNING CENTRE INSTALLED

What began as a trip on the high seas to the Nanaimo Correctional Centre and our U LOCK Storage locker, waiting for ferries, a 3 hour drive up the Coquihalla Highway to Merritt and a short drive to ROCKY PINES our LRT’s Margaret, Carol, Liz and Marion (sorry to miss Barb this trip) working very hard – our 17th learning centre was installed.

I have great admiration for our team as the air conditioning was not working in the learning centre (the professionals tried everything to get it going) and as such the ladies had to work through 90 degree heat. I am glad we shut down early due to the heat however Chris Bur and myself went back later that evening to instal the TV and computers it went up to 99….. quickly opening the doors and window we were able to get it down to a respectable 90.

Now we just have to wait for the amazing donation of new aboriginal books from GOODMINDS. The largest donation yet, 1,000 books..(pre school to adult) an $18,000 gift. Thank you Jeff Burnham for this wonderful gift to the community.

Rocky Pines nearing completion

W2R LEARNING CENTRE – ROCKY PINES – WELL UNDER WAY FOR COMPLETION

Just a week ago Margaret Fletcher (Leader of the W2R Library Response Team) and I travelled up to Merritt and the Lower Nicola Band and met up with our W2R AMBASSADOR, Sue Sterling-Bur and LOWER NICOLA BAND Councillor Leona Marie Antoine to look at their new Community Centre located in the ROCKY PINES community where they have a room set aside for a W2R LEARNING CENTRE…. The trip was excellent, NO SNOW!, the room and building is outstanding and we will make it into a great learning centre for the community…..

Shirley-Pat Selfie

Shirley-Pat’s Rotary Story

NEPETS 2018 Update#3:

Shirley-Pat & Friend So honoured and humbled by this opportunity to share My Rotary Story and the Write to Read Project. The NEPETS family did it again – not only did the incoming President-Elect class of 2018-2019 again give me money from their own pockets BUT the 2017-2018 District Governors represented will also be making donations! The approximate $2500 gift from these amazing Rotary Leaders plus the DGs donations will be leveraged into the W2R-BC’s first Rotary Foundation GLOBAL GRANT!! Hopefully the first of many ?This will enable us to build the first community designed culturally responsive community gathering space to build literacy equity WITH Xeni Gwet’in.

My heart is full – Sechanalyagh

Community Capacity Building

Community PlanningWRITE TO READ MOVING IN DIRECTIONS WE NEVER DREAMED OF 10 YEARS AGO.

W2R has made many improvements to our libraries and learning centres along the way and now designing & building those very centres. Our very first one was just a library in a module donated by then BRITCO BUILDING INNOVATIONS (they gave us 14). The community was TOOSEY (Tkl’esqox) which is in the Chilcotin area of BC near Williams Lake.

TOOSEY was our 1st library thanks to the very hard work of Original Champion Spark Plug and now W2R Ambassador Shirley-Pat Chamberlain. It was very fitting that our next direction with W2R would be pioneered by TOOSEY.

Our next direction is to DESIGN and BUILD homes for community members. These homes would be 1 -2-3 bedrooms and would be designed by the community with the assistance of our W2R ARCHITECT (and magician) SCOTT KEMP. We did just that this week with SHIRLEY-PAT, SCOTT KEMP and myself going to TOOSEY sitting down with the community and coming up with some very interesting designs.

Scott Kemp Feb 21We did not stop there, we are going to train community members with the trades that will allow them to build there own homes. TOOSEY is way ahead in this direction and we feel it can be done………. but one of the best things of this trip was to see an enterprise which is owned by the TOOSEY FN – Chilcotin Plateau Enterprises, who remodelled a school which they use to train FN personal in carpentry trades and more importantly milling skills using a PORTABLE MILL. As a result of our visit we are going to explore how we can partner with CHILCOTIN PLATEAU and run courses for all of our communities who will be using portable mills to cut lumber for their builds…… FIRST NATION training FIRST NATION for FIRST NATIONS……

Literacy and Learning Centres remain to be the cornerstone of W2R but we are also a community building project, as we say there is a lot more to do, WATER, HEALTH just a couple of things we will address with ROTARY one community at a time……

This is community capacity building at its best……

Library Design with Kids!

school spaceW2R DESIGN TEAM VISITS THE SXOXOMIC COMMUNITY SCHOOL at ESK’ETEMC and ENDS UP DESIGNING A LIBRARY WITH THE KIDS…

Through our W2R AMBASSADOR Shirley-Pat Chamberlain we were able to connect with the Principal of this recently opened elementary school. The problem is that they have a really nice & newly built school which does not have a library.

Bring in the design team of W2R ARCHITECT SCOTT KEMP, W2R TEAM LEADER BOB BLACKER and AMBASSADOR Shirley-Pat Chamberlain – mix it with Grade 7 Students magical things can happen…. We had an amazing lunch and session with the kids in the end we had designed where the shelving (made by our team at Nanaimo Correctional Centre) would be placed. So all that is to remain is for our W2R Library Response Team leader Margaret Fletcher to visit the school to review what books they would like and our ABORIGINAL BOOK distributor GOODMINDS BOOK and Jeff Burnham to be contacted by the school for purchase of aboriginal authored books – we will have a cool library….. This was our first session that we have had with students from an elementary school….. and it was a blast!

Healthy and safe spaces make community

Imagineering Poster“Healthy and safe spaces make community.” The “Imagineering” session brings Write to Read BC Team back to it’s first community Tl’esqox – Toosey Indian Band. Architect Scott Kemp and Write to Read BC Team Leader Bob Blacker, join the Original Campion Sparkplug Shirley-Pat Chamberlain and the community of Tl’esqox to design the future.

“Imagineering” is a process of working with Tl’esqox-t’in to design spaces that are beautiful, healthy, safe and culturally responsive. Our goal is to create designs for future homes in the community, including: one, two and three bedroom(s).

This opportunity for continued partnership, participation, and power sharing came about as part of the Phase II of the Tl’esqox Comprehensive Community Planning process, funded through INAC’s BC Capacity Initiative. Phase II’s  priority is housing, focusing on policies, demographic data collection, current housing inspection, and designing culturally responsive homes.

The last point is key as potential houses coming into the Tsilhqot’in Nation as a result of negotiation with the Federal Government under the Tsilhqot’in Case aboriginal rights and title win in the Supreme Court will soon become a reality. Tl’esqox is being proactive so that the community is ready for any an all housing opportunities that present themselves. Tl’esqox and Write to Read BC Team are excited for this opportunity to imagineer the future!”