The Estevan Public Library launched Aboriginal Storytelling Month on February 6 with a visit from motivational speaker and storyteller Vera Tourangeau.

Tourangeau encouraged students who were in attendance to follow their dreams and to never give up, regardless of what challenges they face in life. At one time, she was living her dream: to become a teacher. She also worked as a school administrator before she became a storyteller and a speaker in 2005.

Her speaking engagements have taken her across Canada. Tourangeau has spoken in Canada's Parliament and at the Senate, and in Washington, D.C. She recently started speaking to school students.

"I've received some amazing, amazing feedback," said Tourangeau. "One time, when I was speaking in Ottawa, it was actually my first time (in that city), and 500 people started crying."

Tourangeau's First Nations background is also a common theme in her speeches.

"I do a lot of talking on breaking the walls between nations, in terms of the hate and the racism that's out there," said Tourangeau. "What I see is that it's walls that separate us. So I go in there and say that breaking down the walls is so important."

She spoke mostly to Aboriginals early in her speaking career, but now she talks to audiences of all kinds.