Blogs
Nov 30th, 2007 - 10:37:51 | Mai
feedWorld AIDS Day Breakfast
This morning I attended the World AIDS Day breakfast, held by Oxfam in support of two organizations: Voices of Positive Women, Blueprint for Action on Women and Girls in HIV/AIDS.
Toronto Mayor David Miller, Co-Founder of Blueprint Louise Binder (a trained lawyer living with HIV/AIDS) and Vancouverite author Wayson Choy spoke at the event. It was lovely to see so many people in Toronto who care about AIDS as a global pandemic, and there is a lot of activism which serves as motivation going on here.
I realized that the city cares, but there still is a lot of awareness and activist work to be done in other places which are not exposed to the wonderful resources we have here. On a sidenote, I am also the proud new bearer of a black and red beaded ribbon made by women in Zambia!
Nov 23rd, 2007 - 17:02:18 | Aurora Herrera
Hi Everyone, Oct. 25th was my last blog on the OCIC Conference. After that I fell ill but am now, FINALLY, fully recovered. So my sincerest apologies to all.
Here is my blog about the second and third day of the conference.
REMINDER: The OCIC Global Citizens Forum focused on how to use art for social change.
DAY 2:
There were MANY great workshops to choose from like mural painting, photography, how to blog, postcard making and theatre.
I attended the workshop hosted by Bella Donna entitled, "Stories are stronger than statistics".
THINK:
HOW MANY OF US KNOW THAT RAPE IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR OUR YOUNG WOMEN IN CANADA.
MANY
HOW MANY OF US TRULY CARE AND FEEL COMPELLED TO ACT TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION.
FEW
WHY IS THAT:
We do not connect what we know in our minds with what is in our hearts.
CONSIDER THESE WORDS:
In the name of love, stop.
In the name of love, stop.
As I pick up this thread that I dropped.
From a catch in a throat and a sob
From lungs attached to arms to young to reach the doorknob
And a fiath system too new to doubt there’s a god
But do keep in mind that in time she will learn how to doubt
Around the time her arms grow big enough to let her out
But by my clock too late for a little girl or boy to celebrate
It’s too bad you can’t be un-raped
And the therapist spins all this self-righteous crap
About purging fasts and self-cleansing attacks
Take blue pills for dinner and yellow for snacks
Life through a fog. Who could ask more than that?
And she turns and says, “Doctor, I want my hymen back.”
And he thinks of her stretching and his mind starts to block and says stop.
In the name of love, stop.
In the name of love, stop.
These are a few lines from Bella Donna's song "Giant Squid". I get chills every time I hear or read it.
For me, these words really connected with my hear and my head. Especially when she said "Doctor I want my hymen back".
The power of spoken word is just being discovered
here in Toronto. It is a beautiful and effective way of reaching people in a place they aren't normally reached.
In the workshop we also practiced expressing ourselves without words. We could only use our bodies to communicate what we were feeling and thinking.
I'm categorized as an expressive, so it was really hard for me not to use my mouth as a method of communication.
The exercise broke down many barriers.
Everyone was in the same situation and so did not laugh at their peer. Also, I realized that there are so many ways to use art, including my body, to effect social change.
DAY 3:
The wrap up session was AMAZING. It was warm and fulfilling. All participants came together to share what they had leaned throughout the conference. They performed, sharing the knowledge from their workshop with everyone else. Therefore, it felt like I got to attend all of the sessions. YAY.
[There are pictures in the photo album of all the work the groups did].
Nov 21st, 2007 - 12:01:53 | Mai
OCIC - International Development Week Steering Committee
It proved to be a fruitful meeting and collaboration among a variety of non for profit organizations in Toronto. Canadian Red Cross, World Literacy Canada, CLC TIG, Oxfam, were among some of the organizations present. I find the Ontario Council for International Cooperation is useful because it recognizes the need for NGOs with similar values and missions to work together. We are more effective in larger numbers, right?
So we planned a postcard project which involves sending out kits to 10 schools in Ontario. This arts based initiative aims to educate youth on the Millenium Development Goals, and OCIC wants display the postcards on TIG's global online gallery, as well as promote it in a French school through one of our CLC coordinators (either Timmons or Montreal). In addition, the meeting was a great opportunity to network with other organizations and share ideas.
Nov 21st, 2007 - 11:55:55 | Mai
Dear Karen,
In response to your blog on 'Operation Mentorship', I wanted to share a few of my thoughts with you. I believe a mentor can be both informal and formal. If we think about new social movements (women's movement, gay rights movement, etc.), a lot of what has become formal education stemmed from informal education. The learner's experience, the informal process of soaking up information through one's life stories, propels the roots of action. An individual experiences racism, sexism, prejudice, injustice - and through those informal experiences is the basis of popular education. Mothers, for example, can be popular educators .. and they are quite "informal" mentors aren't they? However I do feel there is a need for formal mentors - we need to process and organize our thoughts and actions, and manipulate them in ways which can be understood by all parties including those in structured power.
There is no clear answer, only room for discussion and critical analysis - and I think besides my long ramble, that we need to keep in mind the importance of constant questioning when it comes to improving our system.
Nov 17th, 2007 - 23:01:48 | KM
Operation Mentorship
Hi all,
The Operation Mentorship went really well - 10-12 youth as well as consultants and moderators from government who wanted to know what us youth thought about having a mentor.
The discussion was great as it was just the right about of people!
One of the heated discussions ranged around this question: do you think mentor is formal or informal? do we have different types of mentors at different points in our lives? who has been your greatest mentor?
I'd love to know your thoughts on this!
Cheers,
k
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