[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":154},["ShallowReactive",2],{"activist-section-sister-dorothy-moore-csm-forming-her-activism":3,"activist-sister-dorothy-moore-csm":81},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"description":68,"extension":73,"meta":74,"navigation":75,"oldPath":76,"path":77,"seo":78,"stem":79,"__hash__":80},"activistSections\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002F01.forming-her-activism.md","Forming her Activism",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":67},"minimark",[9,14,18,21,24,30,33,37,40,43,54,59,62],[10,11,13],"h2",{"id":12},"childhood-and-early-influences-jumping-the-fence","Childhood and Early Influences: “Jumping the Fence”",[15,16,17],"p",{},"Sister Dorothy Moore's activism arose from her childhood as a First Nation woman. Growing up on a Mi'kmaw reserve, Dorothy was surrounded by people who understood and enjoyed one another, sharing a common language and culture. It was in the interface with a larger non-native community that racism reared its head, inflicting “many hurts because of how I spoke, how I looked, and where I was from”. Her first act of resistance was what she called “jumping the fence” – leaving her own community after years of inconsistent schooling that culminated with Grade 6, the highest level offered by the school in Membertou. She wanted more education.",[15,19,20],{},"Dorothy attended the school at Eskasoni for one year, and then, in 1949, became the first Mi'kmaw person to attend public school in Sydney. In Grade 8, struggling to support herself and borrowing books to get by, she was helped by a supportive teacher who was a nun. But in Grade 9 when her understanding of English interfered with completion of an assignment, Dorothy was told “to go home to the backwoods where you belonged and not to ever come back.\" She did go home, but her kind Grade 8 teacher arranged for her to go to Mabou, a boarding school in Inverness County, where she continued her schooling for two years, When she enrolled in the high school in Sydney she once more found herself to be a “first” Aboriginal person who had ever attended that school.",[15,22,23],{},"Driven to prove to herself and others that she was not who she was labelled to be, Dorothy led her Grade 9 class academically in Mabou, and while this did not mitigate financial and other kinds of hardship, her motivation emerged powerfully from the sense that she had “a God-given right to get an education”:",[25,26,27],"blockquote",{},[15,28,29],{},"And I’m going to get it, even though my parents are saying, 'No, you don’t belong there!' – and even though my teachers were not so cooperative and not so kind to help me along, I had friends who were. Thank God for that! And I think I had my own personal insistence to say, I’m going to do it! I am going to do it!",[15,31,32],{},"Obtaining the highest marks in her class provided the affirmation she needed. Dorothy knew she was intelligent and that her sense of being “well versed” in who she was as a Mi’kmaw carried her; a strong sense of identity, resourcefulness and perseverance against the odds.",[10,34,36],{"id":35},"life-choice-and-identity","Life choice and identity",[15,38,39],{},"After she completed Grade 11 and passed her provincial exams, Dorothy decided to enter the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Martha. Her parents were not supportive, but her father signed the letter of application knowing Dorothy would soon be of an age to make up her own mind and that she was determined to go into the Congregation. And indeed, Sr. Dorothy said that “she never turned back” after entering this Congregation in 1954. After two years of preparation, she took her “profession”, the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.",[15,41,42],{},"The Congregation sent Sr. Dorothy off to finish high school and then to Teachers' College, where she received a Certificate of Education and began her teaching career at the age of 25. After teaching in Alberta for a time, she returned to full-time study at St. Francis Xavier University and obtained her B.A. and B.Ed. degrees.",[15,44,45,46,53],{},"Returning to the First Nations community at ",[47,48,52],"a",{"href":49,"rel":50},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.eskasoni.ca\u002FHome\u002F",[51],"nofollow","Eskasoni"," to teach, Sr. Dorothy was elated:",[25,55,56],{},[15,57,58],{},"I was so happy to be back. I hadn’t realized just what it was to be living among my own people; I had forgotten after so many years. Before going to Eskasoni, I wore a nun’s habit, so I could hide in that and not too many people knew I was a Mi’kmaw or a native person, and that was OK with me. But then in 1974, I went to Eskasoni because the community wanted me to be one of the teachers in their school.",[15,60,61],{},"Sr. Dorothy spoke of her father’s pride in her and how on the very first day of her teaching in Eskasoni he suffered a massive heart attack, and died. This was a shock that turned her life around:",[25,63,64],{},[15,65,66],{},"It really woke me up and that’s why I always claim that on that day I was a born-again Mi’kmaw, because I wanted to be everything that my father stood for. He was so proud of who he was, he always insisted we speak our language, he loved his culture, his traditions, the values, and he promoted them with us. I kind of ignored them for a long time because I failed to see the value and worth of being a First Nation person, mostly because of the racism directed toward me.",{"title":68,"searchDepth":69,"depth":69,"links":70},"",2,[71,72],{"id":12,"depth":69,"text":13},{"id":35,"depth":69,"text":36},"md",{},true,"\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Fforming-her-activism","\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Fforming-her-activism",{"title":5,"description":68},"activists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002F01.forming-her-activism","D9sUSFuXInu2F-7SkSfb2iZ10RAum9YR_ClMsvMXUxc",{"id":82,"title":83,"body":84,"description":88,"extension":73,"links":120,"meta":124,"navigation":75,"oldPath":125,"path":126,"pictures":127,"portrait":134,"portraitAlt":135,"province":136,"quote":137,"sections":138,"seo":150,"stem":151,"summary":152,"__hash__":153},"activists\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Findex.md","Sister Dorothy Moore, CSM",{"type":7,"value":85,"toc":118},[86,89,104,107,110,113],[15,87,88],{},"The house in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where members of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Martha of Antigonish live, was a warm beacon in the damp rain of a late August morning in 2008. When Liz Burge met Sister Dorothy to conduct the interview from which this summary was derived, she was taken, teacup in hand, to a comfortable room where she settled into an inviting chair beside a window that featured a now sunny outlook. That window served as a metaphor for glimpsing the qualities needed for a life of sustained commitment, perseverance, and warmth. The conversation provided a frame for understanding such a life, as Sister Dorothy spoke with quiet confidence and an occasional twinkling of the eye.",[15,90,91,92,97,98,103],{},"Sister Dorothy Moore was born in 1933 in ",[47,93,96],{"href":94,"rel":95},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.membertou.ca\u002F",[51],"Membertou",", a Mi'kmaw community located near Sydney, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island. In 1954 she entered the ",[47,99,102],{"href":100,"rel":101},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.themarthas.com\u002F",[51],"Sisters of St. Martha",", and made her vows in 1956. Her activist work covers an impressive span that includes First Nations preservation of language, education, and human rights. Sr. Dorothy has been widely acclaimed for her significant success in helping to improve the lives of Mi'kmaq First Nations people.",[15,105,106],{},"She began her career as an elementary school teacher in Cape Breton and for most of her 22-year tenure as a teacher, Sr. Dorothy taught at schools in Nova Scotia and Alberta. In 1980, she became the Principal of the Eskasoni Elementary and Junior High School. From 1985 to 1995, Sr. Dorothy served on the faculty at the (then) University College of Cape Breton (UCCCB) as Native Education Coordinator, Native Studies counsellor and advisor and classroom lecturer. In addition, she was appointed as Director of Mi'kmaq Services for the Nova Scotia Department of Education. Today, she continues to serve on numerous boards and committees in Nova Scotia. As an educator, Sr. Dorothy has made many presentations on racism, First Nations' education, and Native Spirituality throughout Atlantic Canada.",[15,108,109],{},"Among her many honours are the Order of Nova Scotia, Member of the Order of Canada, and honorary doctoral degrees from Mount Saint Vincent University, Cape Breton University (previously the University College of Cape Breton), and Saint Mary's University which recognized \"[her] devotion and achievements in education, her service to community, and her ongoing efforts to defend and promote the rights of First Nations' people\".",[15,111,112],{},"On October 21, 2003 when she was invested into the Order of Nova Scotia, the citation praised her seminal part in establishing a provincial Mi'kmaq language curriculum that was developed and adopted for the province. Invested into the Order of Canada as a Member on November 18, 2005, her citation states:",[25,114,115],{},[15,116,117],{},"With conviction and determination, Dorothy Moore has championed the Mi'kmaq Nation. Throughout her long career as an educator, she has created learning opportunities for Aboriginal youth and promoted the inclusion of Native history in Nova Scotia's curricula. At Cape Breton University, she was instrumental in developing the Mi'kmaq Studies Program, which helps to preserve the community's traditions by offering courses in their language, as well as on their history and on their culture. An advocate for social justice, she has also fought against racism and intolerance as a member of the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission and the Aboriginal Rights Commission.",{"title":68,"searchDepth":69,"depth":69,"links":119},[],[121],{"url":122,"title":123},"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.danielnpaul.com\u002FCol\u002F1996\u002FSisterDorothyMoore-HumanRightsAdvocate.html","Native Nova Scotian effective advocate in human rights struggle",{},"\u002Fcontent\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm","\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm",[128,131],{"image":129,"caption":130},"\u002Fimages\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Fpicture-1.jpg","Photograph courtesy of the Secretary of the Order of Nova Scotia, N.S. Protocol Office.",{"image":132,"caption":133},"\u002Fimages\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Fpicture-2.jpg","Her Majesty The Queen is accompanied by Sister Dorothy Moore during the visit to the Mi'kmaq Cultural Village on the Halifax Common on June 30, 2010. Photo courtesy of Communications Nova Scotia \u002FLen Wagg.","\u002Fimages\u002Factivists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Fportrait.jpg","Portrait of Sister Dorothy Moore, CSM.","Nova Scotia","Link to the past and focus on the future as we deal with the present.",[139,141,144,147],{"slug":140,"label":5},"forming-her-activism",{"slug":142,"label":143},"practicing-social-activism","Practicing Social Activism",{"slug":145,"label":146},"navigating-highs-and-lows-lifetime-helping-others-learn","Navigating the Highs and Lows: A Lifetime of Helping Others Learn",{"slug":148,"label":149},"creating-change-lessons-and-advice","Creating Change: Lessons and Advice",{"title":83,"description":88},"activists\u002Fsister-dorothy-moore-csm\u002Findex","Sister Dorothy Moore's activist work covers an impressive span that includes First Nations preservation of language, education, and human rights.","uHv3AQ-dR3nAnLRYBiQzG3ICh5iOjRFV6G7yAS5QZ8s",1789062652195]