On Wednesday, June 11, the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique and the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF) opened Les libellules child care centre.
Managed by the team at le Phare C.-B., an entity of the Fédération des parents, Les libellules child care centre opened its doors in December 2023 and moved into a brand new facility in August 2024.
The centre offers three services, including a nursery for children aged 15 to 30 months, child care for children aged 30 months to 5 years, and a school child care centre for families at l'école de l'Anse-au-sable.
The new Les libellules child care centre is part of a large-scale project carried out in collaboration with the Conseil scolaire francophone and l'école de l'Anse-au-sable. Thanks to funding received through the Government of British Columbia's ChildCareBC New Spaces Fund, this new child care centre provides children with an environment where they can grow and thrive in French from early childhood.
"Providing children access to their community's culture and language is so important for their development and wellbeing, and Kelowna's thriving francophone community will benefit for years to come thanks to the opening of this new French-speaking child care centre," said Rohini Arora, parliamentary secretary for Child Care in B.C. "These child care spaces, located on school grounds, will help working and single parents, and women in the community, to have a convenient one-stop drop-off for their children to get high-quality care and go to school. This is another example of our government's commitment to making affordable, quality and inclusive child care a core service that hard-working families in Kelowna and throughout B.C. can rely on."
Located in a new facility that meets the standards of quality and the growing needs of Kelowna's Francophone community, Les libellules child care centre is one of the 13 child care centres managed by le Phare C.-B. These are part of the Fédération des parents strategy to develop Francophone child care centres throughout the province in order to offer services to parents and to support the continuum in education. In this way, French-speaking parents in Kelowna and the surrounding area now have access to a child care centre that supports the language development of their children growing up in a minority language environment.
"We are pleased that families in the Kelowna area now have access to a Francophone child care centre offering their children quality educational programming. In this way, Les libellules child care centre supports parents in their mission to transmit French language and Francophone culture to their children, and provides a suitable environment for the strengthening and growth of the region's Francophone community."
- Christian Leclerc, President of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique.
"I would like to thank the Fédération des parents and everyone involved for their commitment to this essential project for our community. Thank you to the families who choose to send their little ones to a Francophone environment where they can become familiar with French-language schools, which subsequently facilitates their academic journey. We are grateful to them for the trust they have shown us as we support their children in their first steps in French."
- Marie-Pierre Lavoie, President of the Board of Trustees of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique.
Please note that for a child to be enrolled at Les libellules child care centre, one of their parents must be considered a "rights holder" -- that is, they must meet the criteria giving them the right to have their child educated in a CSF school. These criteria can be found on the CSF website, https://www.csf.bc.ca/inscription/.
Le Phare C.-B., as well as operating several child care centres in different communities across the province, offers, among other things, support services to all Francophone child care centres in British Columbia, as well as services and resources to professionals in the early childhood field.
In addition, le Phare C.-B. is recruiting for several positions in its child care centres. Job seekers motivated by a career in Francophone child care are invited to take advantage of the current boom in this sector, which offers numerous positions working with preschool and school-aged children throughout British Columbia. The postings for these various French-language child care centre positions can be found at: lepharecb.ca/offres-demploi/.
For more information
100 - 13511 Commerce Parkway
Richmond Colombie-Britannique
Canada V6V 2J8
