GACNS - GAC YAC

What is GAC YAC?

Gender Affirming Care Nova Scotia's Youth Advisory Council (GAC YAC) is an eight-week pilot seeks to support youth understanding of government, research, and problem-solving skills as taught by academics and activists working on various policy issues; This pilot is designed to provide university-level education to youth between the ages of 16 and 25, delivered in an accessible format, aimed at providing youth skills to use in their future studies, careers, and/or activism.

GACNS is partnering with nonprofit organizations serving equity-seeking youth to deliver eight pre-recorded, one-hour lectures from scholars and activists across Canada, underscoring a specific skill and how they apply it to their work. Participants will receive a new weekly episode to listen to and discuss as a group.

GAC YAC would not be possible without funding provided by Women and Gender Equity (WAGE) Canada.

Listen to GAC YAC

Following the completion of our pilot, we are publicly releasing two (2) episodes of GAC YAC for anyone to enjoy! Below are links to the audio files and supporting documents for the relevant episodes.

Episode 4: Critical Analysis (Islam and Queer Studies)

Episode 7: Advocacy (Decolonizing Policy Advocacy)

Facilitators

Michael Gillis (any pronouns)

Michael Gillis is an alumnus of the Mount Saint Vincent University English and Political Studies programs. Graduating valedictorian of the MSVU 2023 spring arts and sciences convocation, his scholarly interests center on interrogating the political potential of critical and rhetorical theory, especially in the domains of identity politics, gender metaphysics, queerness, and their expression in literature. Their in-progress honours thesis pairs the poststructural theories of Gilles Deleuze with feminist politics of identity, examining the ways feminist identity coalesces, dissolves, and may ultimately be theorized along a plane of radical difference through the literature of Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein. Michael is also a three-time selected presenter at Annual Atlantic Undergraduate Conferences, a 2022 Larry Collins Prize candidate, and served for two years on the MSVU Students’ Union as the Arts Representative.

Itai Kuwodza (she/her)

Itai Kuwodza is an interdisciplinary master's student at Saint Mary's University with aspirations to pursue a PhD. Her current research work in Atlantic Canadian Studies, including an original thesis titled "Performing Diversity: Black Bodies in Atlantic Canadian Post-Secondary Institutions," has been a two-year passion project driven by a desire to understand how race permeates higher education to shape and exploit the experiences of Black students.

Itai sees herself as an academic activist because decolonizing education is an act of activism and advocacy. Her approach to conducting and sharing research is to incorporate accessible material, authors, scholars, and more into the traditional rigid system to push back the boundaries of colonialism. Her process rightfully identifies that anti-Black racism today is steeped in historical context. As a result, she continues to question, understand, and then express that legacy as the reproducer of adverse realities of Black bodies as they interact with colonial institutions and their agents that stand as "permanent statements of fact, culture, truth and tradition that can never be touched, removed or recast." This is all in service of a larger goal of earnestly and accurately articulating the experiences of Black people, not as a universal group but as individuals treated as a universal identity and shared experience.

Katerina Allan (she/her)

Katerina Allan is an educator and researcher passionate about accessible education, particularly mathematics education. She is a private practice tutor who supports learners with diverse needs, including learning difficulties and disabilities, in achieving their high school and university mathematics and statistics goals. Katerina has an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and another in statistics and has worked as a health sciences research assistant before switching her focus to education. At Mount Saint Vincent University, she is studying towards a Master of Arts in Education, General Curriculum Studies. Katerina is writing her thesis on a validity assessment of mathematics and statistical placement at MSVU.

Syed Adnan Hussain (he/him)

Syed Adnan Hussain has degrees from McGill (BA), Emory University (JD, MTS) and University of Toronto (PhD). He is an associate professor in the department for the Study of Religion at Saint Mary’s University. He works on modern Islam, colonialism, Queer studies, and law and religion. He has served as the co-chair of Religion, Colonialism and Postcolonialism at the American Academy of Religion. His publications include a note on Civilizational Sexualities in the Journal for the American Academy of Religion and a chapter on Anglo Muhammadan law in the Oxford Handbook of Islamic law, as well as an entry in the first book devoted to Star Wars and Religion (Star Wars: The Myth Awakens, Derry 2018). His more public facing work includes a TedX talk on decolonizing the past.

Fallen Matthews (she/her)

Fallen Matthews (She/Her) is an Afro-L’nu demigirl and graduate candidate from Dalhousie University's interdisciplinary doctorate program. Her research and positionality as a demigirl offer a unique lens through which she explores the intersection of gender and identity within the context of her academic pursuits. Her work, which incorporates these perspectives, has been featured in both peer-reviewed and non-refereed publications, highlighting the multifaceted nature of her contributions to fields such as Cinema and Media Studies, Africana Studies, Artificial Intelligence, Bollywood, Gender Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Nollywood.

Violet Paul (she/her)

Violet is a Mi’kmaq woman from Indian Brook (within the Sipekne’katik First Nation). She is a lifelong learner who has attended three post-secondary institutions and knows firsthand what’s required to foster academic and professional success.

Violet has worked in policy and programs with municipal and federal governments, the Assembly of First Nations, Shubenacadie Band Council and others. She played an essential role in the 2008 historic apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the Survivors and all Indigenous persons for the multi-generational impacts of the residential school system.

Nailah Tataa (she/they/we)

Nailah Tataa (She/They/We) is a pleasurist and community facilitator active in Mi'kma'ki. Their facilitation centers liberatory practices around care work, communal love and pleasure as a praxis and center to create community spaces.

Their community facilitation work is an amalgamation of theory, studies and life experiences drawing primarily on their life as a Black Genderqueer refugee living on L'nu territory and the implications of our existence on stolen land.

Her facilitation has been sharpened through various pleasure workshops at Venus Envy Halifax with workshops touching on Queering the Tarot, Dirty Talk, Consent, Sex Toys 101 and many other spaces like the Tatamagouche Centre through their ASPIRE program, LivingWorks, Melanated Mama's, Dalhousie University, Wonder'neath, the Khyber Centre for Arts and many grassroots organizations found throughout Mi'kma'ki.

Collaborative work is central to her work. Reach out to her through email

nailahmoonkjipuktuk@gmail.com with subject matter 'Collaboration' to co-create a space with her. Ilale!

Suhnandany Goswami

Release Schedule

Jan 8 - Public Policy and Governance

Definitions of public policy and policy context;
Actors and their roles;
Theories and types of public policy;
Rationales for public policy;
Strategy and adoption; and
Implementation.

Jan 15 - Qualitative Data Collection

Textual or content analysis;
Comparative historical analysis;
Semi-structured and in-depth interviews;
Focus group discussions;
Surveys and questionnaires with open-ended questions; and
Public consultations.

Jan 22 - Quantitative Data Collection

Textual or content analysis;
Quantitative content coding;
Statistical analysis;
Surveys and questionnaires with close-ended questions;
Structured interviews; and
Meta-analysis reviews.

Jan 29 - Critical Analysis

Source evaluation;
Argumentative turn;
Discourse analysis;
Interpretive methods;
Poststructuralist policy analysis; and
Methodological reflection.

Feb 5 - Mid-Pilot Review and Public Registration

Participants will complete a survey based on their assessment of the first half of GAC YAC.
New participants who signed up during open registration will receive the first four (4) episodes of GAC YAC.

Feb 12 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Policy

Integrate disciplines for analysis;
Analyze complex policy challenges;
Apply interdisciplinary knowledge;
Evaluate policy inclusivity;
Consider intersecting identities; and
Communicate effectively in policy.

Feb 19 - Decolonializing Policy

Indigenous women's traditional roles in governance structures and decision-making processes;

Treaty relations and rights;
Epistemic consequences of power imbalances;
Indigenous knowledge systems and public policy;
Multi-scalar and small-scale Indigenous peoples’ movements; and
Decolonization and resurgence.

Feb 26 - Research and Impact Ethics

Ethical impact assessment;
Institutional review boards;
Professional sensitivity;
Voluntariness;
Confidentiality and anonymity; and
Tools to protect participant information.

Mar 4 - Advocacy

Respect informal education;
Interpersonal and public communication skills;
Advocacy circles and actors;
Policy advocacy theoretical frameworks;
Politics, power, and collective advocacy; and
Strategies and limitations.

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