A new plaza to celebrate Canada’s multicultural identity and to contemplate the importance of all mother languages has opened at a Winnipeg park.
The International Mother Language Plaza is located in Kirkbridge Park in Winnipeg’s Richmond West area and was the idea of the Manitoba Bangladesh Bhaban Corporation.
“This site will provide a place for people to gather and be a reminder of the rich existence of linguistic and cultural diversity in our civilization, and nurture respect for each and everyone’s heritage,” said the corporation’s president Khawia Latif.
The plaza acknowledges the struggles many cultures have fought to protect their linguistic rights and freedoms.
It features a medicine wheel which acknowledges the site’s location on Treaty 1 territory, the ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
There is also a seating area and surrounding sculpture which is a replica of the design by Bangladeshi sculptors Hamidur Rahman and Novera Ahmed.