Post by dk on Nov 19, 2006 19:27:02 GMT -5
About Us...
Our group is a new network in Greater Victoria of approximately 100 women and girls from the ages of about 14 and up. We represent diverse ages, ethnic and religious backgrounds, professions, and affiliations in the community. We are committed to:
Increasing the psychological and social well-being of racialised women and girls in their schools, social service organizations, families and ethnic communities;
Promoting the visibility and needs of racialised minorities in the greater community;
Promoting community development and social change through participatory action approaches at the local level, which places decision-making and planning in the hands of those who will participate in and who will be directly affected by the initiative.
A major catalyst for the formation of our network was our association and participation with a University of Victoria research project on Racialised Girls and Social Cohesion that began in spring 2001 under Dr. Jo-Anne Lee. We continued to grow and cohere through our attendance at the research project’s conference “It’s About Us”: A Conference for Girls on Race and Identities in July 2002 at the University of Victoria. We are now at a point where we would like to strengthen this network and facilitate a more structured base from where we can continue the process of community development and social change among ourselves and the many racialised women and girls with whom we have yet to connect.
In Victoria, due to the fragility of services to immigrant, refugee and Canadian born women and girls of colour, government cutbacks have devastated the few programs that once existed. Ethnic communities have few resources and programs. The majority of programs tend to be gender neutral or gender blind.
Our initiative addresses the specific needs and concerns of racialised women and girls who grow up and live in smaller, less ethnically and racially diverse communities—those who live under dominant whiteness.
We propose a community development, and participatory action research strategy that examines intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexuality, language, age and other structured conditions of equality as they are lived out in the daily lives of racialised women and girls in smaller urban centers like Victoria.
We will assist racialised women and girls in developing and acting on issues identified out of their own lived reality, rather than premised upon assumptions and experiences of women and girls living in more ethnically and racially diverse metropolitan centers.
This initiative is aimed at developing the capacity of racialised girls and women living in Victoria and surrounding communities to engage in social change activities intended to reduce their marginalization and unequal treatment.
The central and overarching methods and principles for our organisation consist of:
a) Community development;
b) Participatory Action Research;
c) Engaged "learning-by-doing" models of action;
d) Peer to peer, youth-led initiatives; and
e) Self-empowerment and mentorship among racialised girls and women
Our programs for girls and young women will be developed for and by our advisory committees whose members reflect this population. Based on their input, our programs to explore questions of identity and belonging will be activity and skill development based. We also will develop age appropriate advocacy strategies to make our presence known in the community and to partner with service providers and government agencies to serve our needs more fully. We plan on using cultural strategies to resist present cultural misrepresentations of us and our communities.