Facilitators
Willem Larsen, core staff and partner in WAYK, has 15 years experience in community education, working for non-profit institutions (Oregon Zoo, OMSI), and as a co-founder (Cascadia Wild!, TrackersNW), focusing the past two years in the area of community language revitalization with Chinuk Wawa. Willem pioneers efforts using social media to teach language revitalization and distribute curriculum, via internet technologies such as Skype, twitter, streaming video, blogs, and podcasts.
Dustin Rivers is a language-instructor, cultural teacher, and trained “Where Are Your Keys?” facilitator. He has been working exclusively in his home community of the Squamish Nation as a grassroots coordinator of the Squamish language revitalization. He has been a community organizer for 4 years, worked in numerous non-profits within the arts sector, and been apart of cultural activities in his own community either through canoe families, tribal journeys, or Squamish Nation departments like Ayas Men Men or the Squamish Valley Education Department. He has been developing pilot-programs using the “Where Are Your Keys?” method with great success after being trained by Evan Gardner and Willem Larsen. Dustin brings on the ground experience is implementing successful approaches to language revitalization through community-based initiatives that focus on conversational aspects of the language mixing auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning styles.
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