Diverse Women of Canada

Description of Event

The Diverse Women of Canada: Stories of Resilience event is a testament to the resilience of racialized women and aims to celebrate racialized newcomer, immigrant and refugee women who form an integral demographic in Canada’s population. The event organized by Skills for Change and supported by the Government of Canada, will bring together 20 women from diverse backgrounds to acknowledge their remarkable journeys highlighting thematic topics on empowerment, leadership, equality, employment, education, entrepreneurship and mental health and wellbeing. The event will provide a reliable and safe knowledge sharing platform where women will share their authentic stories, be heard, highlight challenges unique to women of colour and build a community that fosters integrated thinking and develops innovative approaches to tackling challenges such as racism, micro-aggressions in the workplace, systemic bias, discrimination and related inequalities. The event also provides the chance to build solidarity, seize opportunities to reshape narratives and to rebuild a fairer, more equitable, inclusive and resilient recovery that celebrates Canada’s growing diversity.

The event will be held with the objective to promote intercultural understanding of Black women and women of colour while celebrating their unique heritage and culture in respective ways, creating more awareness about Canada's diverse and inclusive society. Through the event we hope to inspire more women to emerge as leaders and to mobilize support for their further integration in the Canadian economy, raising awareness of the unique challenges they face, and work towards enabling societal behavioral changes through an enlightened mindset and create a network of respect. These inclusive and equitable outcomes are essential to ensure that racialized women are not left behind as Canada continues to embark on rebuilding better.

Number of Workshops and Events

15 workshops

3 panels with 13 speakers on day one

• Art, Resiliency and Creativity: How art fuels the stories of women and advocacy

• Equality and Activism for Diverse Women

• Diversity Technological Divide

8 speakers on day two showcasing their individual stories of resiliency.

Key Successes/Outcomes

Diverse Women of Canada was created as a platform from which to amplify and highlight the voices and experiences of racialized newcomer, immigrant, and refugee women in Canada. The event set out to and was successful in mobilizing support for further integration of racialized newcomer, immigrant, and refugee women in the Canadian economy, raising awareness of challenges they have faced, and pointing a spotlight at their resilience through the process. In this second year, the event was again focused on the experiences of racialized women and girls but made a concerted effort to include the experience of Indigenous peoples.

Racialized communities, women, Black women, women of colour, and Indigenous women. The event is also, by design, meant to attract individuals from across industries, cultures, ethnicities, religions, and genders. It is just as important for white men to hear these stories as it is for BIPOC women.

Speaking slots on both days of the event were reserved for BIPOC women and we ensured that all panelists and speakers represented different racialized communities and cities and provinces in Canada.

Throughout the two day event, speakers highlighted the intersection of systemic issues within our democratic institutions with the work being done to combat systemic barriers, with attempting to understand the intersections between legal frameworks, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, our democratic institutions. COVID-19 put a spotlight on what daily life is like for diverse women here in Canada and Skills for Change wanted to make sure that a wide range of issues and triumphs and realities were discussed throughout the event. While the overall event was meant to open a dialogue on resilience and recovery through and in the wake of COVID-19, the harsh realities of the systemic barriers diverse women face in Canada with regard to their rights and freedoms within democratic institutions needed to be addressed both specifically and more broadly.

Funder for the event