Month: August 2017

By Tonya Tagoona

December 2016

On Friday, December 2, 2016, the 4th International Cellphilm Festival Exploring Consent: Bodies, Lands, & Media took place at the McGill Education Building in Montreal, Canada.

At the festival, there were 11 cellphilms shown and each video was between 60-90 seconds long.

Our invited guest speakers at the Cellphilm Festival were Ying-Syuan Huang and Professor Lisa Starr. Ying-Syuan shared her experiences using cellphilms with pre-service science teachers at McGill. Professor Lisa Starr presented on the use of cellphilms in exploring and exposing gender inequity in Ethiopia.

Although all submissions were great, there could be only 3 winners with an honourable mention.

The first place winner for the 4th International Cellphilm Festival went to Exploring Consent: Bodies, Lands & Media by Munira Sitotaw & Yohannus Gebru.

The Day After by Nicole Boudreau & Marc Bragdon came in second.

Are You Watching? A Cellphilm about Consent & Surveillance by Nick Sabo & Sarah Sabo came in third. The honourable mention went to Can I Help You? by Kelly Loi and Jorge Antonio Vallejos.

For more information on Violence on the Land, Violence on our Bodies, please refer to the following website: www.landbodydefense.org

Canada Co-Ordinator

December 2016

In November 2016, two young women— Felicia Tugak and Tonya Tagoona—from Baker Lake in Nunavut, Canada arrived in Montreal to commence their International Aboriginal Youth Internships (IAYI) funded by Global Affairs Canada through the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD).

Tonya and Felicia spent part of their internship in Montreal and were involved with a number of activities including the Networks for Change and Wellbeing Project International Dialogue Symposium, the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference, the Indigenous Film Series and the 4^th International Cellphilm Festival.

In December, Tonya and Felicia delivered an informative and educational presentation to McGill Faculty of Education staff and students. Their presentation examined the critical issues facing their community in Baker Lake, Nunavut. The interns expressed that the process of developing this presentation was a very beneficial learning process and presenting built their confidence in this area. The interactive session was a fantastic opportunity for cross cultural exchange, and suggestions were discussed amongst the interns and attendees to further develop the presentation for their upcoming South African audience.

Tonya Tagoona – Documentation and Research Assistant

My name is Tonya Tagoona, I am 20 years old and I am from the geographical centre of Canada, a small community called Baker Lake (Qamani’tuaq), NU. I am a 1st year graduate from Nunavut Sivuniksavut that mainly focused on my background, Inuit. I enjoy volunteering because it is my way of giving back. I have been given so much in life and I believe it is important to give back. I am excited to be a part of the program, Networks for Change and Well-being: Girl-led ‘From the Ground Up’ because I want to not just see the world, but make a difference in it.

 

 

Felicia Tugak – Digital and Media Assistant

I am an Inuk woman from Baker Lake, Nunavut populating 1,700 people. Having worked with many different cultures in my background, I enjoy meeting and working with new people.

I have experience in the Department of Health in my hometown, mainly working with children and oral health since 2013. I enjoy working on projects such as winter clothing and jewellery making.

I graduated from the Jonah Amitnaaq Secondary School in 2007. I hold a certificate from the Children’s Oral Health Program, which took place in 2013. I also have a certificate of Inuit Studies at the Nunavut Sivuniksavut Program in Ottawa which is affiliated with Algonquin College.

I am an Intern at McGill University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal through the International Aboriginal Youth Internship Initiative. The project focuses on youth engagement in rural communities in Canada and South Africa on sexual violence and high rates of HIV/AIDS.

By Maria Ezcurra

November 2016

An altar (ofrenda) for the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) was installed in McGill’s Faculty of Education, in the first week of November, 2016. It was made by a group of female artists (conformed by both Canadian and Mexican women, as well as by Indigenous descent women from both Latin and North America) to honour the lives of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada. The Day of the Dead is a festive and sacred time for many Latin American cultures. This day, the souls of the dead are welcomed back, joined with the living, becoming a celebration of life. Significant objects are placed as gifts to the visiting souls in ofrendas: the altars for the children are set on the eve of October 31st with sweets, fruits and white flowers, while the eve of November 1st is the time to honor the adults with cempasúchil (marigold flower), spicy food, alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. The altar had elements from Indigenous communities from both Mexico and Canada. These objects were brought by the participants and also hand-made by student, staff and faculty in collaboration with Lori Beavis, Maria Ezcurra and the Mexican artists. A text placed next to the altar reminded us that we are witnessing a worrying rise of femicides worldwide. The cases of Canadian Indigenous Women and underprivileged Mexican Women in Ciudad Juárez have made evident a discriminatory and weak system of justice. In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police counted 1,181 Indigenous women who have been murdered or disappeared between 1980 and 2012, while in Mexico, 3,892 women were murdered between 2012 and 2013.

The altar was offered to the Indigenous women and girls that have been murdered and gone missing in Canada. They were mourned, but their lives were also remembered and celebrated in this day. By honouring the lives of these women and girls, we also generated awareness of the widespread violence against Indigenous communities, and about gender-based violence in general, while creating a space for dialogue and bringing the community of McGill together.

It also allowed us to celebrate our ancestors, acknowledge the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka people where McGill University stands today, and share diverse Indigenous cultures with the community of Education. This project created links, generated awareness, allowed participants to make community and to work together against the increasing violence towards women and girls, particularly marginalized ones, that we are witnessing in the Americas.

This project was created by Maria Ezcurra (Art-Mediator), in collaboration with Lori Beavis (Artist-in-Residence) and a Collective of Mexican Women Artists and Creators, conformed by Nuria Carton de Grammont, Carmen Giménez-Cacho, Nancy Guevara, Flavia Hevia, Daniela Ortiz and Amanda Ruiz.

McGill Research Team

November 2016

On Wednesday 9th November 2016 the special issue of the Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Indigenous Girls was launched in the Faculty of Education, McGill University. Guests were welcomed by Paige Isaac from First Peoples’ House at McGill

University and a member of the Provost’s Task Force on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education.

Guest editors of this Special Issue, Kirsten Lindquist, Kari-Dawn Wuttunee of the National Indigenous Young Women’s Council and Sarah Flicker of York University were present and each spoke about what the editing of the journal meant for them, drawing attention to key points in their editorial Speaking our truths, building our strengths: Shaping Indigenous girlhood studies.

 

Haidee Smith Lefebvre, one of the authors read from her article Overlapping time and space: Early modern English’s girlhood discourse and Indigenous girlhood in the dominion of Canada (1684-1860).

 

Proceeds from the sale of journal copies went to the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. Link to event video: https://youtu.be/M-JcNEJLabk

Magill Research Team

November 2016

On November 9, 2016 Networks 4 Change held one of its key meetings with participants from Canada, South Africa, and the United States, the International Dialogue Symposium, at McGill

University. Co-sponsored by McGill and the Girls Action Foundation, this one day event preceded the National Women’s Studies Association held in Montreal, with the theme of decoloniality.

This pre-conference ‘community building’ event facilitated dialogue between key stakeholders and partners working in the area of sexual violence, along with a number of young women themselves who will speak about critical issues related to violence and leadership.

There were three panel discussions featured during this event, exploring the complexity of and learnings from working across varied geographic locations, the critical issues in addressing sexual violence, and the progress of the project up to this point.

Dialogue Session One – Working Across Generations and Geography

Kari-Dawn Wuttunee (National Indigenous Young Women’s Council) Brittany Jones (National Indigenous Young Women’s Council) Kirsten Lindquist (National Indigenous Young Women’s Council)

Dialogue Session Two – Networks for Change and Well-being: Where are we now?

Marnina Gonick (Mount Saint Vincent University) Sandrina de Finney (University of Victoria) Sarah Flicker (York University) Relebohile Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Dialogue Session Three – Critical Issues in Addressing Sexual Violence with Girls and Young Women: New directions

Shaheen Shariff (McGill University) Shanly Dixon (Concordia University) Lisa Starr (McGill University) Rachel Zellars (Girls Action Foundation)