About the Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation
We have a big mission: to ensure all children in Canada are equipped with the literacy skills they need to reach their full potential.
We were founded in 2017 by Heather Reisman, founder and CEO of Indigo and Chair of the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation, and Heather Munroe-Blum, Chairperson of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, who recognized inequities in early literacy development across the country and set out to drive change that would build a brighter future, and enable all children in Canada to achieve their full potential.
We are the only national charity dedicated exclusively to children’s early literacy.
We raise awareness of the importance of early literacy, promote and develop children’s literacy initiatives, champion literacy partners, and empower people to build literacy skills in their homes and communities.
Why? Because building literacy skills in children is one of the most effective ways to ensure they can achieve their full potential in school and throughout life. Literacy opens doors to understanding, empathy, critical thinking, and the capacity for lifelong learning. A more literate nation is healthier, more productive, and more socially engaged.
Yet too many children are being left behind.
Together, we can change this.
Let’s build a brighter, more literate future for all children in Canada.
Our Land Acknowledgement
The Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation’s office is located on lands that are covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit and is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. Our work takes place on the traditional territory and the enduring home of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples across the country now known as Canada.
Core to our beliefs is that oral and written storytelling can contribute to honouring, respecting, and protecting the languages and cultures of Indigenous Peoples who have lived here for millennia. We are committed to learning about the traditions and current realities of the Indigenous Peoples of this land. We strive to listen to and learn from Indigenous ways of nurturing literacy in children, and to support those traditions in communities where we are invited to work together.