The Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation (CCLF) has launched Lost & Found: A Digital Exhibit of Kids' Pandemic Stories, a public online gallery featuring a selection of stories from the 5,000 children across Canada participating in Lost & Found story-making workshops.
This digital exhibit is the culmination of the Lost & Found project, a national storytelling initiative led by CCLF in collaboration with a diverse coalition of mental health and child-serving organizations. The program was made possible by a grant from The Government of Canada’s Department of Canadian Heritage.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a struggle for children and their families – yet the stories of children, in their own words, have been largely absent from our collective pandemic narrative. The Lost & Found initiative is part of CCLF’s efforts to help address the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s development.
Through a series of workshops on story-making, the program gave children a platform to reflect on, shape, and share their pandemic experiences through written prose, poetry, drawing, audio/video and other art forms.
By expressing themselves using stories, children and families are building their literacy skills, developing an understanding of the power of their words, and forging stronger connections to their communities.
Now, many of those stories are available for all Canadians to see. These submissions came from every corner of Canada, and will be archived to help future generations understand the impact of the pandemic on Canada’s children.
Browse the online gallery at the link below. and download free workshop toolkits for educators and parents, available in seven languages, including English, French, Arabic, Ojibway, Cree, Inuinnaqtun, and Inuktitut.
Educators can download the free curriculum and toolkit to use with their students, and parents can access an activity guide to do at home with children. Everyone can continue to submit children’s stories to the online public gallery.