Yukari Ikebata
Principal, Founder
The Detail of the Establishment of Ikebata Nursery School
A father, a third-generation Japanese Canadian, who dearly loves Japan but unfortunately has lost the Japanese language. And a mother, perfectly satisfied and happy with her life in Japan, married a Japanese-Canadian and moved to Canada. They wanted to pass on the Japanese language, its culture, and its customs, to their son.
We cannot be the only ones looking for a place where a child feels at home in an entirely Japanese environment… this belief lead to the birth of the Ikebata Nursery School.
It all started when I had my child in 1992, when there were no Japanese daycares, and there were very few Japanese speaking babysitters with professional skills and knowledge, so I decided to care for other children in the same situation, at my home.
One year later, in 1993, my husband and I started the Home Day Care which was renovated specifically for the child daycare. In 1995 we registered a licensed Home Day Care with the Province of Ontario, and 5 years later, we had 4 Home Day Care Centres.
But we still had a long waiting list. That was when we heard about the JCCC moving from Wynford Drive to the current location. We knew there would be no better location, and submitted a plan for an Ontario licensed Japanese language Nursery school with the JCCC. The JCCC is a crown of our predecessors’ labours who went through many hardships in Canada, and there is great significance in occupying a space there.
Our Nursery School is quite unique. There are temporary residents such as Japanese
businessmen’s families, new immigrants those married to a Canadian person, second-
third-or-fourth generation Japanese Canadians, and non-Japanese / non-Japanese speaking families.
The children with varying backgroundsgather here at the Nursery, and speak the Japanese language and experience its culture and the customs. The statement “One has to speak Japanese to have his/her child speak Japanese” is an old belief now. At our Nursery we provide an entirely natural and everyday “Japanese” environment to immerse the children in. We want our child to learn the sense of appreciation and caring for one another, which we Japanese have learned and have passed on to our children, in a caring and loving environment, without forcing them.
With the happy faces of our children, and our sincere dream of “creating a true cosmopolitan mind”, together we can make the Nursery School an even better place!!