20 years ago I started a journey and I had no idea where it was going to lead me. I became a mother of 2 children in a country that was not communicating in my mother language. The language around us was “foreign” to me, but it was going to become “native” to my kids. This was a scary thought.
On top of it all, I had no idea what was right or wrong. The only guidance I had, and this is honestly still the guidance I follow today despite all of the academic knowledge I now have, was my instinct.
….and guess what? it was perfect!
My instinct told me it was right to communicate with my children in my mother tongue, to share my culture and my language. It wasn’t always easy and not everyone was of the same opinion as my instinct. However I persevered and now I can see how valuable this was, both to me, my husband and to our children, it was valuable for our whole family.
Recently I joined an amazing project with a group of people who are trying to raise awareness through a project called PEaCH (Preserving and promoting Europe’s cultural and linguistic heritage through empowerment of bilingual children and families.)
PEaCH for bilingual children
This project aims to offer guidance to parents and educators on how to support, maintain and develop a child´s home language(s) and additionally to encourage educators to embrace bilingualism and to raise the awareness of the benefits of bilingualism.
I have been very fortunate to be asked to participate in this project as a PEaCH Ambassador for my local area. The idea is to create a European Network of PEaCH Ambassadors made up of educators and other professionals who will be able to support bilingual and multilingual families.
Over the coming weeks and months, I intend to share my own story with you. In addition I will be holding talks, offering group meetings and posting regularly with information to support this project.
If you would like to know more about the PEaCH project please feel free to look at the website, it is really informative and it has a rich supply of resources in many European languages.
In addition there is a free guide on “How to raise a bilingual child”.
The website and the guide is available in English, Italian, Spanish, French, German and Romanian.