NETWORKS FOR CHANGE AND WELL-BEING
Girl-led ‘From the Ground Up’ Policy Making to Address Sexual Violence in Canada and South Africa
Dear Partners
We first want to acknowledge the National Indigenous Inquiry on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada and the launch of its website: http://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/. This is an important step and one which will have critical implications for our Partnership as a whole. This issue of the newsletter puts a spotlight on the various activities and publications (new and forthcoming) of Networks for Change and Well-being in both Canada and South Africa. A very significant component of the last part of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 has been the involvement of two Indigenous Youth Interns—Felicia Tugak and Tonya Tagoona— from Baker Lake, Nunavut in Canada. The interns are part of the Canadian International Youth Internship Program (IYIP)/ International Aboriginal Youth Internships initiative (IAYI) funded by the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD). Felicia and Tonya have spent time on both the McGill campus and the University of KwaZuluNatal campus, and have also been working in rural field sites in South Africa. As is highlighted in various places in the newsletter, their observations and perspectives offer a great deal to deepening an understanding of shared experiences of Indigenous young women, and serving as reminder of why and how a Partnership operating across two countries is so powerful. Our plan is to explore the ways in which these kinds of exchanges can bring the rich range of experiences of Indigenous girls and young women from South Africa who are participating in the various Networks for Change field sites to a Canadian context in the coming months. As we move further into the Partnership, we are excited about the many artistic and visual productions being created in the various sites. We soon plan to launch our brand new ‘gallery of social change’ on the Networks4Change website www.networks4change.ca. We want to add in a note about coordination. As Networks for Change and Well-being evolves, there are of course changes in staff and we say good-bye to Michelle Harazny, the Project Coordinator at McGill who has been with the Partnership almost from the beginning, and who has now returned to her home province of Saskatchewan. We welcome Mearon O’Brien from Australia who joined McGill in December. As always, we offer special thanks to the contributors to this newsletter, and to our partners for their ongoing support. Warm regards, Claudia and Lebo
Content
Issue 4: March 2017
International Dialogue Symposium
2
Journal Launch: Indigenous Girls
5
Altar for the Day of the Dead
6
Fieldsite Reports
7
Intern Bios & Reflections
19
New Publication
22
Forthcoming Publications
23
4 Cellphilm Festival Winners
25
Upcoming Events
26
Partners & Stakeholders
27
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