Anti•dote
Annual Report 2005
Written by:
WINNIE CHOW
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 1
Anti•dote
A Network of Racialised Minority and Aboriginal Girls
and Women in Victoria and Southern Vancouver Island
Table of Contents
Financial Report ............................................................3
Executive Summary ......................................................4
Anti•dote Partnerships ...................................................6
Anti•dote Programs & Projects .....................................7
• The GURLz Club and Women’s Group ......................7
• Knowledge Dissemination &
Public Education .......................................................8
• Immigrant and Refugee Girls As
Caregivers Research Project .....................................8
• International Girls Discussion Series ........................9
• 2005 Summer Programs .......................................... 11
• Gurlz Conference ..................................................... 11
• Formation of Sistahs ................................................ 11
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PROGRAMS AND
RESEARCH REPORTS, VISIT OUR WEBSITE:
w w w. a n t i - d o t e . o r g
EMAIL: [email protected]
©2006 Anti-dote - All rights reserved
2 - Anti•dote Annual Report 2005
Anti•dote
ANNUAL REPORT 2005
Financial Report
Category
General Income
Interest from Bank
Other Revenue
Wages and Benefits
Sub-contracting
Honorarium
Charity and Donations
Business Insurance
Meals and Entertainment
Food, Groceries, Hampers
Office Expenses and Supplies
Accounting
Rental
Workshop supplies
Automotive
Travel and Accommodation
Telephone and Communications
Professional Fees
Advertising and Web site expense
Licenses, Dues and fees
Totals
Funders
$12,000
$16,000
$ 4, 257
$ 32, 000
Funding
Received
53,969.50
716.00
48.05
Operational
Expense
54,733.55
29,120.90
11,419.00
190.00
80.00
779.00
223.62
49.00
1,548.40
522.00
500.00
2,063.00
897.00
95.00
355.00
2,037.00
11.00
50.00
49,939.92
Net
4,793.63
Canadian Women’s Program
Human Early Learning Partnership
Human Resource Development Center- Summer Career Placement
Status of Women Canada
Additional funding to come
$4,995
HELP project:
$12,000
Status of Women
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 3
Executive
Summary
Anti•dote continues to grow in
membership and momentum in the
community. There is increasing
support of the work we are doing
based on the growing community
partners outlined in the Partnership section. With the partnership
with the YMCA, Anti•dote will be
able to access potential forums to
disseminated Anti•dote reports and
inform policy makers working with
racialised and Indigenous girls and
women. Through our Gurlz Club,
International Gurlz discussion
series, we are establishing a legitimate space in the Public School
sector and various social service
agencies. Through our research
project with the University of Victoria, we have the opportunity to
create a theoretical analysis of our
reality that will complement our
stories to inform and create change
in the community.
As you read this annual report,
you will see all the great work of
the staff, volunteers and the Board
of Directors in the last year. In
June 2005, we received our second round of funding from Status
of Women Canada, which is our
base for the next 18 months (ending December 2006). In that time,
we have received funding from
the Canadian Women’s Foundation, Human and Early Learning
Partnership and Human Resources
4 - Anti•dote Annual Report 2005
Development Canada. We need
to continue applying for further
funding sources to continue this
much needed work and space in
Victoria. In March 2006, we applied for a Charitable Tax number
and will hopefully hear back by the
end of April 2006. If we received
the charitable tax number, this
will open the doors to applying to
foundations and corporations for
sponsorship.
As we continue to work to build
the capacity of the girls in our
organization, there is a new group
formed who needs to have a space
of their own, the “Sistahs”. This
group of young women was the
foundation of Anti•dote from the
beginning and is in the transitional
stages of girlhood to womanhood.
They have expressed a lack of
leadership opportunities in the
community and within our organization. To address this within
Anti•dote, our first step is to mobilize this group to find out their
needs through weekly meetings.
The next step is to create leadership
opportunities that come out of the
consultations and offer will offer
training workshops and mentorship
opportunities during and after the
Gurlz Conference. The formation
of the Sistahs group is an exciting
prospect for Anti•dote for it completes our circle. Wherein the girls
start in our projects and then transition to the Sistah’s group and then
into the Aunties, thereby completing Anti•dote’s network circle of
mentorship and support.
In our Status of Women application, we stated four areas of focus
that would be completed in our
18 month contract. Priority one is
the Immigrant Caregiver Research
Project, wherein cumulating in creating social change in the area of
immigrant and refugee and caregiving in the public sector.
The second priority is working
with International Girl students to
give voice to their reality in relation to human rights, international
policy, and the international school
regulations.
The third priority is to begin
consultations with the First Nation Women and girls’ groups to
identify possible partnerships with
Anti•dote. One of the implications
from Dr. Jo-Anne Lee’s research
project stated the lack of understanding to the strained relationship
between racialised minority and
Indigenous girls. In the months
to come, Anti•dote needs to continue to build the bridge with the
local First Nation organizations to
network and create a space for Indigenous and racialised minorities
to share and unpack their realities
and relationships with each other.
We have applied for a Social Science and Human Research Canada
(SSHRC) that looks specifically at
this relationship between racialised
minority and Indigenous girls
(Pending April 2006)
The fourth priority is to continue
Anti•dote’s capacity building and
membership base. As we move
into our third year as an organization, we must think of our needs,
our membership and our vision.
In the membership section of this
report, Zara Suleman, proposes a
draft outline of membership for
Anti•dote members to ratify in the
New Year.
In summary, this last year as the
Executive Director has offered
me the opportunity once again to
engage in conversation, research,
projects and social events with
amazing racialised and Indigenous
girls and women in Greater Victoria. It is because of these connections and the people that make
Anti•dote so unique. The people
in this organization are the driving
force behind creating social change
in our lives. It is because of your
passion, your spirit, and your time
that Anti•dote exists. Without you,
we would not be. So thank you for
your continued support in this New
Year.
Winnie Chow
Executive Director
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 5
Anti•dote
Partnerships
In the last year, Anti•dote continues
to build it’s capacity through developing strong community partnerships. The YM-YWCA of Victoria
contacted Anti•dote in April 2005
to establish a community partnership after reading the New’s
Group’s article on Anti•dote and
the “Shoot this” workshop. Mark
Dodd, the Director of the center
was impressed with our action of
creating change around issues of
racism in addition to talking about
it and wanted to help us create a
physical space for the public to
access. Through this partnership,
Anti•dote has use of YM-YWCA
facilities, administrative support
(email, phone and photocopying),
promotion of activities through the
Y network. We are also in the process of finding funding for a collaborative project for our Gurlz club.
The University of Victoria, Faculty
of Education is keen to work with
Anti•dote in it’s Knowledge Cooperative research project linking
University and community agencies to better mobilize knowledge.
Anti•dote’s model of community
and University partnerships that focuses on community development
was highlighted in the Canadian
Council on Learning’s State of the
Field report on Social Movements
and Adult Learning. The report
6 - Anti•dote Annual Report 2005
acknowledged Anti•dote’s unique
beginnings as a PAR research
project that evolved into a community organization. Through the
Department of Education’s support,
Dr. Ted Riecken has opened up his
research lab for Anti•dote to work
on our multi-media projects of
digital slideshows and films.
Surrounded by Cedar partnered up
with Anti•dote during the Summer programs and facilitated local
First Nations’ history and perspectives workshop. Through this
initial contact, Bradley Dick, Youth
Group Counsellor would like to
continue working with Anti•dote to
promote programs for Indigenous
girls.
The City of Victoria, Youth Council, lead by Chelsea Peddle has
partnered up with Anti•dote to
ensure their youth survey included
a racialised lens. In the Fall of
2005, Anti•dote youth offered
suggestions to the survey questions, which opened the dialogue
within the youth council on issues
of race, gender, class and privilege.
Anti•dote also assisted in the data
anaylsis of the survey. We hope
to partner in future events to table
issues with Victoria city council on
issues identified by Anti•dote members and research projects.
The City of Victoria contracted
independent researchers to assess
the City’s funding and current
programs and effectiveness. The
report overlooked marginalized
and gender in their analysis and
clearly stated the City of Victoria
did not need to put further funding
into projects that supported marginalized groups such as immigrant
and refugee, homeless and the
poor because there were enough
non-profit agencies serving these
populations. We hope to partner
with the youth council to table this
issue with Anti•dote reports and
our girls speaking at the forum to
counter this report with City council in 2006.
To build on our partnerships,
Anti•dote needs to continue bridging and consulting with local
organizations such as the Victoria
Native Friendship Center, Galiano
Island Film and Television School,
Leadership Victoria, Power of
Hope, and the Victoria Police
Department’s Diversity Advisory
Committee. These organizations
could help build our members’
technical skills in multimedia,
public speaking forums, outreach
to new members in the Indigenous
communities, access possible
policy and decision makers.
Anti•dote
Programs & Projects
In 2005-2006, we operated four
projects that address the current needs and goals of Anti•dote
members: The GURLz Club,
Women’s Group, Immigrant and
Refugee Girl Caregiver research
project, International Girls Discussion Series. All the projects work
towards developing the girls’ skills
in leadership, multimedia, public
speaking and creating a tool to
share their reality in the community. All the projects will cumulate
in Anti•dote’s Second Gurlz Conference on May 13th, 2006.
The GURLz Club and
Women’s Group
This project is funded by the Canadian Women ‘s Foundation and in
partnership with the Intercultural
Association of Greater Victoria.
This intergenerational violence
prevention project brings together
racialised women and teenage girls
to talk about the issue of violence
against women and healthy relationships. In many of the cultures
that make up Victoria’s diverse
community adolescent romantic
relationships are forbidden and
frowned upon. This creates a
culture of silence and secrecy that
puts young women at risk of being
involved in a violent relationship.
This project will bridge the generational gap in order to create a
support network of racialised adult
women that young women can
talk to and share their experiences
with. The project has an adult and
adolescent component. The adult
component will focus on discussing healthy relationship, violence
against women and how to talk and
listen to young women who are at
risk of being in a violent relationship. The adolescent component
(GURLz Club) will also focus on
the above issues but also explore
what the young women need in
order to feel safe in approaching
adults to talk about relationship
issues. The two groups will then
come together to work in bridging the generational gap in a safe
and culturally sensitive place.
While adolescent women generally
access the support of their peers
when they face difficult situations, racialised young women are
sometimes isolated from their peer
group due to the different cultural
realities in which they live.
Rani Sandhu is the facilitator
for both the Gurlz Club and the
Women’s Group. Kristen Celeste, a practicum student from the
School of Nursing worked with the
girls and presented a workshop on
sexuality with both groups. Linley
Faulkner, a volunteer, is working
with the girls to produce the final
slideshow.
The goal of the project
The goal of this intergenerational
violence prevention project is to
bring together racialised women
and teenage girls in Greater Victoria to address the issue of violence
against women and breakdown the
silence created around this issue
due to cultural sensitivities and
generational differences
The objectives of the project are:
• To provide a safe place for
racialised women and girls to
openly address violence against
women.
• To analyze the cycles of violence within families and the
impact on future generations.
• To help women and girls from
diverse cultural backgrounds
develop communication skills
to address these issues that are
culturally sensitive.
• To help develop a network of
support to prevent violence
against minority women and
girls in the Greater Victoria
area.
Project Outline
The Project will run for six months
(October 2005-April 2006) and will
include the following components:
• Weekly meetings: Two separate groups will be formed: A
women’s group and an adolescent GURLz club. These
two groups will initially meet
concurrently but separately to
begin exploring the issue of
relationships and relationship
violence within the cultural
realities of the participants. The
groups will also explore generational differences in regards to
the above issues and how these
play out within the Canadian
context. The two groups will
then start to meet together utilizing the communication skills
and new knowledge gained
from the separate groups to
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 7
Anti•dote
Programs & Projects
further explore the issue of
gender based violence and how
to create a supportive space in
order to prevent young women
from being involved in violent
relationships.
• Monthly Events: Once a month
the two groups will come together to share a cultural tradition led by one of the women.
These will include cooking,
storytelling and crafts. These
events will play an important
role in creating relationships
between the two groups as well
as validating the rich cultural
backgrounds of the participants.
• Photography Project: The project participants will be given
disposable cameras to document their reality and interpretation of relationships in their
lives. From there, the girls and
women will engage in developing a photo essay for a showcase in the community. These
photos will highlight both the
differences and similarities
between the two age groups.
• Support Network: Throughout
the duration of the project, participants and project facilitators
will help develop a network of
support, by inviting community
speakers, assisting participants
in researching resources available in the community, and
learning how to have access to
them.
8 - Anti•dote Annual Report 2005
• Violence Prevention and
Communication Workshops:
Based on an initial participant assessment, participatory
and interactive workshops on
violence prevention and communication skills will be developed and delivered in the two
groups. Through these workshops participants will gain
skills to create and maintain
healthy relationships, prevent
dating violence and respect
multicultural and cross-generational diversity and differences.
to foster participants’ capacity to
support young minority women
and talk to the issue of relationship
violence.
The girls and women will finish
a short film on relationships and
intergenerational communication.
It will be presented at the GURLz
conference and possibly at the
Changes Conference on April 8th,
2006.
Immigrant and Refugee Girls
as Caregivers Research
Project
Knowledge Dissemination
and Public Education
Purpose
Currently in Victoria there are
educational violence prevention
curriculums that are delivered in
schools and community groups by
non-profit agencies such as the Red
Cross and the Victoria Women’s
Sexual Assault Centre. However,
these curriculums do not take
cultural differences and the realities of young minority women into
account. From our research there
are also no curriculum focusing on
breaking down generational communication barriers to increase
access of support by young women
facing violence. Together with
ICA, we will develop a curriculum
for the Violence Prevention and
Communication workshops based
on this project. Input from the
group participants will also be used
to further refine the curriculum
to ensure that the format is youth
friendly. The curriculum will have
a strong experiential component
This project responds to an increasing awareness of immigrant/refugee adolescent girls’ provision of
child care to their younger siblings.
This two-year Participatory Action
Research (PAR) project, funded
Human Early Learning Partnership
(HELP) from the University of
British Columbia, will investigate
characteristics and effects of child
care practices provided by immigrant/refugee adolescent girls to
their young siblings, and will identify policy implications that will
better support the care of young
children (aged 0-6) in immigrant/
refugee families. The research
encourages immigrant and refugee
adolescent girls (10 – 19 years of
age) to share their experiences of
immigrating to and/or growing up
in Canada, and how this move, as
well as the current family situation
has influenced their role as caregivers to younger siblings.
Anti•dote
Programs & Projects
There is a dearth of knowledge
about the characteristics and effects of this type of care on the
development of young children and
their adolescent female caregivers
especially as it plays out in immigrant/refugee families’ daily lives
after coming to Canada.
Project Coordinator:
Winnie Chow
Principal Investigators:
Dr. Veronica Pacini-Ketchabew,
Dr. Jo-Anne Lee, & Dr. Xiao-bei
Chen
Outreach: Sylvia Chen & Rita
Kozma
Facilitators & Research Assistants:
Rani Sandhu & Zara Suleman
The research will contribute:
1) to academic knowledge about
the effects of immigrant/
refugee girls’ caring on the
development of their siblings
and themselves;
2) to raising policy questions
about how the state and community can support child
development in immigrant/
refugee families;
3) to practitioners’ and social
service agencies knowledge
as project will be conducted
in partnership with organizations serving the local immigrant/refugee population such
as the Inter-Cultural
Association and University
of Victoria’s School of Child
and Youth Care, School of
Social Work and Department
of Women Studies.
Project Outline
Nine participants meet weekly for
2 hours from January- May 2006
and take part in a series of training
workshops to develop skills and
knowledge in the areas of:
1) CPR certification
2) Resume writing and Job
hunting and interview skills
3) Multi-media workshop
4) Public speaking and
communication
As a participatory action project, in
between the scheduled workshops,
they were asked to document and
reflect upon their experiences and
reality possibly through the use of
written journals, photography or
interviews with each other. They
each created a digital slide show
of their own personal stories on
iMovie.
Two Girls from the project presented their slideshow at the 8th
Annual Metropolis conference
on Research on Immigration and
Integration. The conference was in
Vancouver at the Westin Bayshore.
The girls presented on a panel
on Participatory Action Research
with Dr. Jo-Anne Lee, Sandrina
Definney, Rani Sandhu, Winnie
Chow and Agnes Lui (Status of
Women Canada) to a group of academics, NGO’s, policy makers, and
community members.
This is one of the major projects
outlined in our Status of Women
grant. After data anyalsis is complete by June 2006, we will need to
strategize to bring this report with
the girls in the project to policy
makers and community organizations. Mark Dodd, from the
YMCA is interested in Anti•dote
making a presentation/ training
with his staff and Board of Directors from the Y in the fall. We will
also work with Chelsea Peddle and
the Youth City Council to bring this
report to City Hall.
International Girls
Discussion Series
The International Girls Discussion
Series is an initiative that came
out of a series of Anti•dote focus
groups held in 2003-2005 with
international girls (13-25 years
of age) in the public and private
school systems. The focus groups
helped us document several important issues related to international
girl students’ experiences in Victoria schools. International girls
expressed their sense of exclusion
and isolation due to language and
cultural barriers. Many also described the vulnerability and lack
of self-esteem that comes for being
removed from familiar support
networks. The girls also noted that
the schools hold tremendous power
over their daily lives, and that they
faced many barriers when trying
to advocate for themselves. Many
girls living in school residence
described an unbalanced power
structure that supports the school/
residence side and silences international girl students. In some situations, girls who spoke out were labelled as trouble makers and faced
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 9
Anti•dote
Programs & Projects
consequences such as threats of
poor report card evaluations, loss
of privileges, denial of due process,
and being sent home to face the humiliation of failure. Many students
expressed that their sense of isolation is furthered by the fact that
they have limited to non-existent
support systems outside the school
or home stay/residence.
There are very supportive staff
members in local public and private schools who have dedicated
valuable time and energy to addressing these issues. Adequate
resources, planning and training to
address the growing numbers of
international students and the pressures on staff, must support these
initiatives. Through discussions
with SD 61 International Student
Program (ISP) staff, international
girl students have identified crosscultural communication and understanding as the main barriers to
their effective transition from their
home country to Victoria. In the
previous year, Anti•dote worked
with SD 61 ISPs to help mediate
cross-cultural issues with specific
cases and facilitated staff and home
stay parent orientation. Through
discussions with the Director of
the International Student Program,
we identified a need to provide a
space for international girls to talk
in their language to assist in the
transition of studying abroad. This
pilot project is a result of these
discussions and meetings with both
parties involved: the International
Student Program and the International Girl students.
10 - Anti•dote Annual Report 2005
The issue of developing healthy relationships with others, particularly
with boys and men, also evokes
many landmines that are rarely
discussed in the home and school
setting. In the last two years,
there have been a number of cases
involving sexual assaults targeted
at international girl students in
public spaces and at schools. Sadly
in many of the cases, the girls
remained silent and did not access
necessary supports, which also
meant they were further victimized
and that the perpetrators were never
charged. It is crucial to develop
culturally-sensitive prevention
strategies that address this urgent
and critical issue. Service providers need to give the girls the tools
to understand healthy relationships from both western and home
country perspective (cross-cultural
understanding), as well as the skills
to self-advocate and access appropriate supports, particularly in
harmful situations.
Another important issue is that of
support networks and the delegation of authority. For most international students, parents have been
the focal locus of control who determine the activities, interests, and
daily lives of the girls. When they
are in a Western environment, the
concept of “What do you want?” is
as foreign as the English language.
Girls need tools to deal with new
expectations related to cross-cultural communication, boundaries
and authority.
This project will provide space for
such discussions to occur. Facilita-
tors from the same language background as the girls will work with
them on developing the girls’ skills
and the language to self-advocate
their needs around topics such
as healthy relationships, healthy
boundaries, dealing with new forms
of authority, and accessing support
networks. Since we are not affiliated with the school or residence,
our discussions have a level of
confidentiality that support a safe
and open environment for discussion, with less fear of judgment or
retribution. All discussions will be
in Mandarin, Korean or Japanese.
At the end of the discussion and
activity series, we will have the
girls and the program staff evaluate the project. During the activity
sessions, we will provide space
for the girls to explore these issues using multi-media mediums
of their choice, including discussion groups, art and drama, digital
photography and slide shows.
Project Outline
From November 2005-May 2006,
Chinese, Japanese and Korean International girl students met once a
month for a discussion group after
school 3:30-5pm at the Victoria
High School and Reynolds Secondary School. They also met once
a month activity session Saturday
1-3 at the Intercultural Association of Greater Victoria to network
with other International students
living in Victoria. The discussion
series will look at their experiences
around cross-cultural barriers and
develop skills related to mentoring,
self-advocacy, accessing cultur-
Anti•dote
Programs & Projects
ally-relevant supports, linkages to
other students, cultural differences
in healthy relationships and friendships, healthy boundaries, etc. All
discussions will be in Mandarin,
Korean or Japanese and the focus
will be on developing concrete
skills for cross-cultural communication and outreach.
2005 Summer Programs
Through Canada’s Human Resources Skills Development’s Summer Placement program, Anti•dote
was able to hire Julie Lee as the
Gurlz Summer Program Coordinator. Throughout the summer, we
offered week-long programs to
teenage girls ranging from 13 to 18
years. Through outdoor adventures,
documentary-making, theatre, arts
and fitness activities, girls who are
exploring their identities had the
opportunity to take part in things
like: learning the rich multicultural
history of Victoria; creating a short
film of what it’s like to grow up
between cultures; acting out and
sharing stories and experiences;
cost effective ways of taking care
of your body and health; and most
importantly making new friends.
The aim of these programs is to
increase youth involvement with
Anti•dote, help girls develop confidence and leadership skills, and
give them the tools to take what
they learn and educate the larger
community about what is important
to them. Brianna Dick created a
slide show documentary on beauty
and it won a National Aboriginal
Youth award in 2005.
Gurlz Conference
Formation of Sistahs
Janni Aragon, hired in February
2006, is the Gurlz Conference
Coordinator. She is assisted by
Kaitlin Pelletier (IET Practicum
Student) and Danielle Edwards
(volunteer) to coordinate the vision
and needs of Anti•dote members
(gurlz club member, young women,
aunties and the Board of Directors)
for the 2nd Gurlz Conference on
May 13th, 2006. Consultations in
February and March created the
formation of the young women
group “Sistahs”. (See the following section for more information).
The planning of the conference
is taking shape and ideas of Hip
Hop dance, cooking, fashion, silk
screening, and multimedia training
on IMOVIE are being considered.
We are currently in a donation
drive to help fund portions of the
conference.
Young women who neither fit in
the Gurlz (10-18 year olds) nor the
aunties’ (self-identified) created the
“Sistahs” space. There was a need
for a space for Sistahs who shares
a common reality of new school
environment (college or university)
or new work environment (postHigh School work). The group is
meeting weekly to help plan and
work with Janni for the Gurlz conference. They will be assisting in
the fundraising drive in the month
of April and becoming mentors for
the Gurlz at the conference. They
also created a program for the
Sistah’s at the conference.
The conference will take place in
the Student Union Building at the
University of Victoria. The all day
event will cumulate in an evening
showcase of Anti•dote projects and
is open to community and family.
We will also be doing a fundraising
event the evening before on May
12th, showcasing Puentes Theatre’s
Ute/Ate- an one woman play on
intergenerational communication
between an Indian mother and
daughter’s perspectives of relationships in the Canadian context.
From the consultations, Anti•dote
will work towards creating leadership training opportunities for the
Sistah’s to create workshops for
facilitation, job skill training, grant
writing and networking with each
other.
Anti•dote Annual Report 2005 - 11