Through this project, we reach out to Indigenous women and organizations to honour the lives and legacies of murdered and disappeared Indigenous women and girls, to work on healing and identify challenges to indigenous women’s safety and social standing, to increase awareness about MMIWG and male violence against women, and to find artistic expression for the issues and concerns identified within their communities.
Key activities include 5 days of workshops, healing circles and other experiential and interactive activities for local indigenous women, leading to art collaboration projects, such as skits, music, spoken word, drawings, performance, etc. Participants and helpers will be recruited and will receive honoraria and gifts.
The project will culminate in bringing participants together for a final collaboration and recording of the final pieces and to review and vet the findings of this project. The final activity is the creation of a guide book for sharing with communities. Please note that we require consent from participants to share their work and images.
We have held one gathering in Vancouver in February, 2020. Our second gathering, in the Montreal area, November 8-12, 2021, was for Inuit women who are experiencing homelessness. The gathering on Vancouver Island (Feb 21-25, 2022) was successfully completed, as was our fourth gathering in Winnipeg (Mar 7-11, 2022). The final portion of this project work is to create a shareable facilitators’ guide by the end of October, 2022.
We thank our aboriginal sisters and our partner organizations for collaborating and completing this vital work.
Thank you to our funder, Women and Gender Equality (WAGE).
Email us at awan.bc at gmail.com