Here’s an event that many of you might be interested in attending!

On the same day, the UVic Students of Colour Collective is having a Community Canvas Painting workshop at the Victoria West Community Centre, from 10am – 10pm, so check that out too if you want!

Conversation Panel on Resistance in Art Medias with: Janet Rogers, Chandra Melting Tallow, Sindy Angel and Sabina Chatterjee
Image Theatre with Sindy Angel
Writing with Kanika Jackson and Zine-making with Letitia Annamalai

Snacks, drinks and bus tickets are available!

Time: Saturday Feb 16th @ 12-6pm
Place: Victoria West Community Centre, 521 Craigflower Road, Bus route #14

RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/534101503296135/

Born in Chile, Lina already had a full theatrical career in 1976 when she moved to Canada. Her personal experience with exile and immigration made her see theatre with new eyes, as an essential instrument for social and personal transformation. In 1988, she founded PUENTE THEATRE in Victoria BC, with the mandate to express through theatre the experiences of immigrants and diverse minorities.

This workshop is a unique opportunity to explore theatre as a form of activism for self-identified multiracial and Indigenous girls and women of all orientations. We are creative, vibrant and strong and by sharing stories we can create powerful ways to resist and challenge racist and sexist violence together.

As a result of the excitement generated in our first workshop, antidote is hoping to create an ongoing theatre group. Come join us and be part of this exciting initiative!

Date: Saturday February 9, 2013
Time: 2-5pm
Place: Victoria West Community Centre, 521 Craigflower Road
Admission: $5 for adults, free for youth

You can RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/590267860987962/

Where: Victoria West Community Centre, 521 Craigflower Road
When: Saturday January 12, 2012 from 2 to 5PM
Cost: $5 at the door
Who: Everyone!

This is an invitation to try out the many wonderful and varied aspects of theatre: games, body work, non-verbal communication, voice, story-telling, creation of images, dialogue, movement, use of props and costumes, masks, and more! This will be a fun and hands-on event. Come ready to move and participate! Feel free to RSVP on Facebook by clicking here.

Thank you to everyone who made it such an amazing event!

This event is inspired and co-organized by our Girls Leadership Team. We are bringing together a crew of multiracial and Indigenous female spoken word artists to share their uniquely creative and lyrical abilities as they illuminate new pathways for naming and preventing different forms of violence in their lives and communities and in honour and remembrance of the women who died in the Montreal Massacre and our Stolen Sisters.

Victoria’s Poet Laureate, Mohawk writer, spoken word poet and Antidote Board member Janet Rogers says that “ceremony is a basic human reaction to grief and moments of celebration. I feel pride in my heart to see the power and creativity in our young women and the new ceremonies they invite us into, all in the name of contributing inspiration and empowerment into the world.” She is spearheading the Poetry Auction Fundraiser, where audience members will bid for the chance to have a poem custom written by their favorite local  talents: Linda Rogers, Jeremy Loveday, Autokrat or Janet Rogers.

Youth Slam Poet Kanika Jackson states that “this is about women coming together to share their side of the story, to speak up and stand up for ourselves. We’ve let men do far too much of the talking, and it’s time our voices were heard.”

A series of writing workshops were held to prepare for this, funded by Status of Women Canada as part of a project to engage young women and girls in effective violence prevention.  We hope to see you all there!

Why should people care?

There is too much at risk for people not to care about these silences and erasures. When racism and sexism might be salient to deaths and violence against women and girls, we need to know. This crucial information helps us make sense of our communities’ tragedies. Without this knowledge, it is difficult to see repeating patterns and systemic incidents such as the missing women in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, the Highway of Tears where hundreds of women have been murdered or gone missing, the Montreal Massacre, and hundreds of individual incidents, like Amanda, Reena and Kimberly all across Canada.

Remaining mute helps to conceal the magnitude and multiple facets of systemic violence directed against particular groups in our society. This makes positive change harder to achieve. By misnaming or misrecognizing racialized and gendered violence as bullying, public attention to violence may diminish or be redirected away from gender based, anti-violence programs in multiple community settings, and into neutral, universal, school based, anti-bullying programs that serve some, but will continue to fail those most vulnerable, especially girls, from minoritized communities who increasingly constitute the growing multicultural and Indigenous student population in urban schools. Desperately needed funding for gender based violence prevention and treatment programs will dry up. We cannot let this happen.

We need to stand up and name violence for what it is. We need to refuse to use language that minimizes the severity of violence in our lives.

We need this information because it helps build connections and support. We need it to formulate strategic actions to change negative conditions that feed violence.

What can you do?

You do not have to share experiences of victimization to help. All you need to do is to speak out and to stand up against violence against girls and women. You can join in making a public space for supporting people of all genders and ages from minority communities experiencing harassment and violence. antidote will be holding several activities in the coming weeks to commemorate all victims of racialized and sexualized violence from our communities. We hope you will join us to celebrate strength, resistance, and community.

Thank you,

Jo-Anne Lee, President, antidote Network for Multiracial and Indigenous Girls and Women, Victoria BC

full text of the open letter