SATURDAY, MAY 24th 2008

Welcome and registration, breakfast provided by Ethnoculture

Workshop « How to sensitize public institutions about our communities »

Spokesperson:

Sarah Blumel

She has an undergraduate degree in Social Work and a BFA in design for the theatre. In addition to her work with COCo, Sarah continues to work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer and questioning youth at Project 10 where she focuses on empowerment, facilitation and capacity-building with participants, staff and volunteers.

Workshop « How to prevent homophobia and lesbophobia in ethnocultural communities?»

Spokespersons:

Edward is currently completing his master’s of social work at McGill and serving as the research co-ordinator for a community-based queer refugee research project. As a social worker, he has worked with “at-risk” youth and his last place of employment was as team leader for the Youth Animation Project – a work experience program which enables youth and young adults to learn employment and life skills while at the same time create short animated films about the environment. Ed was also involved in the LGBT community in Calgary as volunteer and activist, co-ordinating a queer youth leadership development conference and serving as the president for Calgary Outlink: Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity.

Rachel

Paola Rachel Jean-Pierre has been working at the community level for the past six years. Her social involvement started with women living on the street. As a counsellor in a women’s shelter, she realized that although finding a shelter is the primary need for this clientele, there also always underlay a different problematic such as conjugal violence, sexual assault and discrimination. Following this eye opening experience which spanned over four years, Rachel developed a particular interest for assisting victims of sexual assault. She currently works for a specialized sexual assault team and continues to develop an expertise in that domain.

Interested in immigration issues and a feminist perspective, Rachel has also done an internship in a children’s hospital supporting pregnant immigrant and refugee women with HIV.

Rachel has a bachelor’s degree in Women’s studies and a certificate in criminology. She also completed a master’s degree in Social Work.

Lunch break provided by Ethnoculture

Issues related to refugee and immigrant services in countries of origin and Quebec (GAME)

Spokespersons:

Suhail Abualsameed (Research Coordinator/Co-Investigator) is a gay immigrant from the Middle east, who’ve been in Canada for 6 years where he got involved in a number of community-based initiatives and became active in matters of social justice and human rights.

Suhail runs a program for newcomer/immigrant queer youth through Supporting Our Youth (a program of Sherbourne Health Centre), and is one of the coordinators of Salaam; Queer Muslim Community. He also participated in the Youth Migration Project, a 3 year community based research project that examines the vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS among migrant youth as a research team member.

Furthermore, Suhail participates as a public speaker through Passages to Canada through which he presents at conferences, schools and forums around the country on the topics of multiculturism, immigration, social determinants of health, human rights, youth and queer issues.

Anne-Marie Bellemarre

Anne-Marie Bellemare has studied in political sciences and social work. She works and is very active with new immigrants. She worked for four years in the prevention center of Laval as a social worker and took care of immigrants that were sent there.
She co-animated the radio show ¨Ici Radio Refuge¨ at Radio Centre Ville.

Anne-Marie Bellemare teaches a course on Social Intervention and cultural diversity and supervises students willing to begin their carriers at the health women project.

Stories from real life... Third Space Playback Theatre performs the stories of oppressed and marginalized individuals through interactive forms.