Celebrating 10 Years of Action

(Geneva, 2009)

On March 15, 2003 I participated in my first anti-war protest. It was a bitterly cold day, I was 16 and to say that my mother wasn't happy with my decision, is a tremendous understatement.

Two weeks earlier I had attended a youth peace vigil against the Iraq War in Mississauga with some of my highschool friends. We carried signs, lit candles, listened to a speech by Jack Layton and made the evening news. 

It was at the peace vigil that I heard about the anti-war protest for the first time and I was game. Most of my friends in my grade didn't really get what the big deal was. The prospect of a war in a far away country with whom they had no connection to didn't seem to trouble them, and I suspect they were growing tired of listening to me talk about it. Fortunately I had made some friends in my grader 12 history class (I was in grade 11) who invited me to come with them to the protest in Toronto.

Despite my mom's misgivings she drove me to my friend's house and we took the GO train downtown (this might have been my first time downtown without adult accompaniment). Once we arrived at Yonge and Dundas Square we were surrounded by other protesters. It was invigorating to know that I was standing against something I didn't believe in with more than 10,000 people in Toronto and hundreds of thousands of people around the World. We chanted slogans, held our signs high, and marched to city hall. On my way home I remember seeing news footage of the protests from around the world playing in Union Station. The protest was winding down but I was just beginning.


 (A picture from March 15, 2003. Source: http://tamarind18.com/shock-and-awe-the-war-we-could-not-stop)

In the days that followed the protest, then Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to allow Canada to become involved in the War in Iraq, a small consolation to the Iraqi civilians as the bombs started to fall. I never would have imagined that 10 years later I would be working with refugees who escaped the same war. 

A year and a half later I moved to Ottawa where I started my B.A. in Human Rights and Law. In the first semester I attended two anti-Bush protests, one less than 100 people and one over 1000. My distribution of flyers for the second protest raised ire in a couple of my floor mates in residence who covered my door with propaganda in favour of the Iraq war. I returned the favor but denied any involvement until the event passed into being just a funny story.

For some time after that I went through a quieter phase and focused on my academic endeavors, developing the knowledge I would need to be an effective activist.

And then there was facebook. 

I got facebook in late 2006 to maintain contact with the friends who I met on exchange in the Netherlands. In June 2006 I inadvertently got sucked into CBC's great Canadian Wish List. The Great Canadian Wish List encouraged Canadians to make a wish for Canada's 140th Birthday. I was curious about the project so I checked it out, and was soon dismayed to learn that the top wish was to end abortion in Canada. Naturally I made a counter wish, wishing that abortion would remain legal and figured that some more important issue would take the lead. I guess abortion was the more important issue. My wish eventually received over 8,000 votes and the opposing wish had close to 10,000. The event received limited news coverage, likely because of the sensitivity of the subject, however I was on both TV and on the radio to mark the event. 

At the same time that I was leading an online campaign for something that I consider to be a fundamental women's rights, I was also getting my first taste of the importance of participating in community development as a component of activism. That summer I volunteered at the Dixie-Bloor Neighbourhood Centre which supports immigrants, where I supported a settlement worker and trained all of the settlement workers in the office on human rights mechanisms in Canada. This was a really wonderful experience for me and I learned a lot about the importance of sharing knowledge and ideas at the grassroots level and I also learned a lot about issues facing refugees. 


(With the staff at the Dixie-Bloor Neighbourhood Centre)

I've continued to try to contribute to social change through working and volunteering at the grassroots level since that time. This is most evident through my work with refugees and as a fundraiser. 


(Building a Shack in the North-West Province in South Africa)

I've also dedicated a great deal of my academic work to human rights, activism and social change. I wrote my M.A. thesis on the causes of the demand for small arms and light weapon in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I worked with Congolese refugees living in South Africa and recorded their stories of violence, heartbreak and hope which I amalgamated into the final draft of my thesis. While I was writing my thesis I had hoped that it might contribute to better peacebuilding and development practice in the DRC but I wonder whether anyone has read it beyond my peer editors (thanks again guys!) and my thesis committee.

Since I finished my M.A. I've also had a number of opportunities to engage in public speaking events. As passionate as I am about my work I still find it absolutely terrifying to stand up in front of groups and deliver my message. I guess it's an area to work on.

Above anything else, I think my experience in Uganda has made me appreciate my ability to engage in this kind of work more than anything else. Aside from the somewhat humourous anecdote of avoiding being teargassed in a number of protests in Canada only to be caught in the cross fire of some during a riot in Kampala, being in Uganda really helped me to develop a strong appreciation for democracy and a healthy civil society. I've written before in this blog about the tiredness of many of the young people who I met in Uganada, and their acknowledgement that their system wasn't working but that they couldn't imagine a way out. I'm also aware of the accusations of torture and other forms of violence against political dissidents in the country.  

(Idle No More)

Over the last ten years I have emerged as a young adult who truly believes that you need to work towards the change that you want to see in your community, country and world. I've also have developed a strong appreciation for the importance of human rights education. I am incredibly greatful that I've had the opportunities to engage in the human rights issues that concern me most including armed violence, equal opportunity and women's rights. 

I hope to bring the same passion and enthusiasm with me into my next 10 years of action. 

If you'd like to start engaging with issues that matter to you here's somewhere to start:

1. Get Informed - read books, news paper articles or anything you can get your hands on so that you have your story straight.
2. Write a Letter - If you're short on time you can always write a letter or send an email to a politician about an issue that's of concern to you. Just remember it's important to research who you're writing to ahead of time, since I have the experience of being on the receiving end of such letters as a student working for the government.
3. Vote - vote in local, provincial and national elections. vote in student elections. vote any time you can. It's one of the most effective ways of making you voice heard. When you do remember all of the people around the World who don't get the chance to.
4. Go to  a protest - keep it peaceful if you can.
5.  Share your knowledge or skills - you could be a volunteer, give a presentation or even write a blog! The best way to get other people on your side is to share with them!
6. Be the Change - You might think this is totally cliche but leading by example, whether it's being a vegetarian, buying sweat shop free clothes or simply not littering, is a great way to reach people

Wait! Just one more thing. There's still a war going on in Iraq. It's not front page news any more but people continue to die as a result of sectarian violence and the American need for hegemony and oil. Many of the clients at Reception House, who are government assisted refugees have been displaced as a result of the war. Nothing separates our lives from those living war zones except the chance of where we are born.

Iraq Body Count Estimates that up to 120,000 civilians have died in the Iraq War.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

International Women's Day

A year and a half ago I had the pleasure to attend the ISIS WICCE Peace Expo in Kasese in Western Uganda. The Peace Expo invited local and national peace activists from across Uganda and neighbouring countries to come together to discuss sexual violence and child marriage. What was particularly striking about the event, was that it was almost exclusively attended by women from societies traditionally dominated by men.

Near the end of the Expo the Deputy-Prime Minister of the Rwenzori Kingdom invited all of the international participants, including myself, on to the stage and asked us to take an oath. The Oath was to reduce gender based violence in their home communities.

Last year I was in the West Nile over International Women's Day and trying to cope with the aftermath of the release of the Kony 2012 video. This year I'm at home and I'm ready to start fulfilling my pledge.

In Kasese I learned that there were over 3000 child mothers in a region with a population of just over 1,000,000. Many of these girls were the victims of rape or physical abuse and found themselves in their situations as a result of poverty and lack of opportunity to do things we take for granted like go to school. Gender inequality is far more deeply rooted in Ugandan society than just a few thousand child mothers. It seemed to be ever present in daily life ranging from the unwillingness of female participants to participate in group discussions in Lira, to learning about women being expected to kneel or bow before their husbands or other men when they entered the room throughout the country. When coupled with the necessity of working alongside expectations that women were solely responsible for maintaining their homes and caring for their children the burden of womanhood also appeared to be quite high.

So how does this related to gender based violence and gender inequality in Canada?

In Canada it's estimated that 1 in 17 women will be the victim of rape and that the majority of those women. Most rape victims are between the ages of 15 and 24, 80% of rapes happen in the victims' home and 70% of rapes are perpetrated by someone known to the victim (Rape Victims Support Network).

Further, it's estimated that half of all Canadian women have survived at least one incident of sexual or physical assault and almost 30% of women have been assaulted by their spouse (Canadian Research Institue for the Advancement of Women). Further, on any given day 3,000 women are staying in shelters in Canada (Canada Women's Foundation). In addition many women also experience emotional abuse which is characterized by name calling, alienation from friends and family and manipulation.

Of course the pervasiveness of gender inequality is also evident throughout Canadian society too. Media and popular culture encourage women to conform to a stereotype of a thin, young looking woman. Income inequality continues to occur throughout the work force and gendered language is prevalent in daily conversations, such as the use of the word rape as an adjective to describe something other than a coercive sexual act.

It's easy to explain a lot of this away as statistics. Many of us think we don't know anyone who has experienced what I've described above.

But we do. We just don't talk about it.

When I was 18 I met a man who was smart, funny and charming. After we started dating he didn't want anyone to know about our relationship. If he didn't get his way he'd give me the silent treatment. When I tried to breakup with him he would cry and beg for forgiveness.

When we moved in together he started calling me names, insulting my friends and becoming increasingly aggressive. One night he pushed me down, I blew it off feeling that I had provoked him. But it was only getting worse. At the age of 21, after a particularly frightening incident I left him. I might have left sooner but I didn't recognize what was happening as abuse because I was too embarrassed to ask my friends if their boyfriends were doing the same things.

When I did finally leave it was with a tremendous amount of support from friends who helped me move and gave me somewhere to stay, my mom and my aunt who gave me their time and helped me financially and a counselor. Not all women who face my situation, or worse, have that amount of support.

Women, just as men, deserve an opportunity to live their lives to their full potential in an environment free from violence and discrimination. 

I hope that we can continue to work together for a more equitable and just world.

Some resources:

Canada Women's Foundation:
http://www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-violence


Canadian Research Foundation for the Advancement of Women
 http://www.criaw-icref.ca/ViolenceagainstWomenandGirls


Rape Victims Support Network
http://www.assaultcare.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49&Itemid=58

Women's Crisis Services of Waterloo
http://www.wcswr.org/