Kitchener – KWPeace

Nonviolence Festival Day In The Park — 9 July 2016

Nonviolence Festival

The Nonviolence Festival Day In The Park is taking place this weekend, Saturday, 9 July 2016 from noon to 5:00pm on the island in Victoria Park, Kitchener.

There will be vendors of homemade goods, information tables for community groups, music in the gazebo, food, and games for kids (with prizes!).

Join us for this celebration of Diversity, Peace, and Social Justice, held yearly since 2005!

If you’re on Facebook let us know you’re going!

The Nonviolence Festival is one of many Peace and Social Justice organizations in the KW Peace Collective.

Cross Cultures commemoration of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, 31 March 2016

Greetings, here’s an update for the Thursday schedule …

there may be slight last minute variations

this is an open invitation to the entire community to participate and attend … FREE Public Event

spread the word! share with friends, community, network ..

with THREE entirely different but equally thrilling segments
9:00 am – 1:30 pm
2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
6:00 pm – 10:00 pm

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8:30 arrivals

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9:00 Opening Ceremonies:

· Elder Jean Becker leads indigenous opening prayer

· followed by O’Canada, in English and in French with Daniel Kelley

· Dignitaries bringing greetings

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9:30 Harold Albrecht MP on Politics and Faith

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9:40 Catherine Fife, MPP for Kitchener Waterloo

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10:00 Break:
students browse the displays

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10:15 Musical presentation of peace
(Grade 7 or 8 class) WCDSB :

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10:30 Carla Beharry
a proud Inter-Cultural Canadian, born and raised with a Guyanese Father, and a British Mother. Carla began mentoring women and girls in Guyana and Belize, 13 years ago. Her work abroad encompasses teaching sexual health & HIV education, leading women’s empowerment groups, and encouraging women to have a voice in standing up to end domestic violence. Most recently, Carla started her own mentorship group, Girls in the World, designed for teen girls in Canada to have a space to discuss gender, identity, race, self-confidence and self-worth. The groups are lead with the intention of supporting teens in rising up against discrimination, while cultivating courage, kindness, and compassion.

Carla’s talk will be an interactive forum for teens. All attendees will be given an opportunity to ask anonymous questions about culture, race, identity, and equality. We will work together, as a group to create clarity, and will work within the belief that educating children and teens, holding space for honest questions, and honouring our diverse, multicultural world is the only path to true freedom and liberation for all beings

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11:00 Student Senate will lead a panel discussion WCDSB

Politics vs Religion, The Challenges to promoting Peace and the need for Equity

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11:30 Lunch

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12:00 Lincoln Heights students WRDSB

Lincoln Heights is honoured to be joining the events for this years day to Eliminate Racial Discrimination. This is a topic that they are very passionate about and they have prepared short speeches of their opinions on this years theme Politics vs religion

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12:20 Presentation on Politics vs Religion:
a student from Resurrection will do a PowerPoint, and Blue scarf campaign

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1:00 Greetings from Berry Vrbanovic, Mayor of Kitchener

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1:10 Islamic School of Cambridge

six different presentation

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1:30 Wrap up activity
Game: Join the Dots, Resurrection to lead in this activity

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1:45 Students leave for buses

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2:00 Politics vs Religion panel

* Professor Norman Klassen
The Western Separation of Religion and Politics: A Paradox of Christian Humanism . . . building on his comments from last year’s discussion about the medieval Christian poet Geoffrey Chaucer: that his vision is for the togetherness of a pilgrimaging community. He gives a picture of what it means to recognize endless depths in one another: a responsibility to stay in dialogue with them. This year Professor Klassen builds on that with reference to another Christian writer, the influential novelist Marilynne Robinson. She likewise starts from the idea that “people are images of God” and ends with democracy as “the inevitable consequence of this kind of religious humanism”. Professor Klassen will ponder the effectiveness of these two writers as writers, precisely because they recognize the importance of freedom both for their characters and their readers. So freedom, including political freedom, is paradoxically bound up with a religious vision that has developed in the West as Christian humanism

* Doug Thomas
Doug Thomas is the president of Secular Connexion Séculière, a national organization that acts as a communication nexus for secular humanists, advocates for secular humanist rights in Canada, and speaks out for persecuted atheists around the world. Doug Thomas on the Subject of Politics vs Religion:

He sees the concept of “politics vs religion” as an unfortunate idea that implies that they cannot co-exist and that one must somehow supersede the other. Doug promotes the idea that democratic governments must avoid interference at the systemic level by religions, but that individuals should be able to bring their religious beliefs to the table as long as they do not insist on imposing their religion on other believers or on non-believers. At the same time, laws should avoid impeding the expression of personal belief or non-belief by individuals. The gold standard should be the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the case law developed from it by the Supreme Court of Canada

* BobJonkman
co chair, Fair Vote Canada, Waterloo Region Chapter
Bob has been advocating for electoral reform since the 2007 Ontario referendum on Proportional Representation. Bob would like to see a voting system based on Proportional Representation at all levels of government. In today’s panel discussion Bob will focus on how Proportional Representation isn’t only for political parties, but also for ethnic, religious and gender diversity

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3:00 WLU Diversity Team presentations

3:30 Brenda Halloran joins us and will be
speaking to a group of students about politics, their responsibilities, answer questions etc

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4:00 Hate Crimes Prevention Project
Coalition of Muslim Women
Sarah Shafiq
a unique grass roots project based in the Region of Waterloo, aiming to education Muslim women on how to recognize, respond and resolve a hate crime or incident. Some details on how the goal had to be modified from victim support after an incident, to educating the importance of reporting the incident to police and documenting it

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4:30 Fair Vote Canada Waterloo Region Chapter
Bob Jonkman, will expand on proportional representation and will show slides

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5:00 Colleen Sargeant James
Colleen is the co-founder and CEO of Divonify, She works with businesses to provide holistic solutions that meet global diversity and inclusion benchmarks. Colleen is committed to helping empower businesses to establish diversity and inclusion best practices and creating a corporate culture of authenticity and inclusiveness. Colleen is a dedicated member of the community, she has over ten years experience working in public administration and the not-for-profit sector. She is an active member of Zonta International, a leading global organization of professionals empowering women worldwide through service and advocacy. Colleen writes a regular blog that specializes in diversity and inclusion awareness and is a graduate of the University of Toronto

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6:00 Jane Richard
KW Right to Life is an educational prolife non profit charity, one of hundreds of like organizations across Canada that promote the value of human Life from conception to natural death.

Sketch of talk content … followed by discussion from the floor: Following the preamble of the Canadian Bill of Rights, the protection of moral and spiritual values based on the supremacy of God – the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family – time honoured – changing to a secular approach where people become their own moral agent – legally allowing abortion and assisted suicide on demand. – the implications on individuals and Canadian society

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6:00
PEACE CONCERT
. . . this annual general arts and culture extravaganza encompasses the broader sense of the word culture !
song, dance, instrument, drama, poetry, visual art & photography display, CD & DVD etc

including:
* Mark Evans and the band
CANOES EYE VIEW

* 2yLite Tha Titan is a Palestinian-Canadian rapper and producer who stands for social equality and freedom among all people. He has been making music for a total of 16 years and has 4 CDs released with performances in several cities in Canada. He will be performing some of his latest music from his soon to be released album “Evolve Or Dissolve”
p.s. if you are wondering, my name is pronounced Twilight The Titan

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for those who have not joined us over the years:

Cross Cultures has been organizing Waterloo Region’s full day FREE event to commemorate the

UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

for educators, students, organizations and the general public ..

PS
since March 21st this year falls on the Monday back from March Break and holy Easter week
the consensus has been that we go with March 31st instead

Please feel free to connect with me by phone or email:
looking forward to hearing from you
Gehan

—
Gehan D. Sabry
Editor / Publisher
Cross Cultures magazine (since 1991)
POB 20002 Kitchener ON N2P 2B4
Tel: (519) 748-9520
Fax: (519) 893-4259
email: crosscultures@bellnet.ca
www.crosscultures.ca

This item was mirrored from the Cross Cultures Facebook Event.

Is Fair Elections Act Fair? — Panel Discussion Wednesday, 23 April 2014, 7:00 pm

From the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo web site.

Despite widespread opposition, the process moves onwards with the Bill C-23 called the “Fair Elections Act”. End of March, it passed second reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 149 to 131 – with all opposition parties and independent MPs voting against it. If passed into the Fair Elections Act, it would: eliminate vouching, disallowing voter ID cards as valid identification of residence, change regulations surrounding campaign financing, limit the ability of Canada’s chief electoral officer to speak publicly, and more.

April 23rd at 7 p.m. at W-K United Mennonite Church in Waterloo, we are hosting “Is Fair Elections Act Fair?” Awareness Panel to talk about the impact of the proposed changes for low-income people, seniors and youth, Aboriginal population, people with disabilities, homeless.

W-K United Mennonite Church
15 George Street, Waterloo ON N2J 1K6 [map]

7 – 8 pm Welcome & Panel presentations [iCal]

Peggy Nash, MP Parkdale-High Park
Prof. Mathieu Doucet, University of Waterloo
Sharon Sommerville, Fair Vote Canada WR chapter

8 – 9 pm Questions to the panel and discussion

For more information and to RSVP, contact maria@waterlooregion.org.

Organized by the Social Planning Council KW, Poverty Free KW, FairVote WR, WR Labour Council, TransitionKW, Homelessness Awareness Week, Canadian Federation of University Women KW.

“Is Fair Elections Act Fair?” poster advertising the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo panel discussion on 23 April 2014.

Original .PDF file: Panel_April23_2014.pdf, 555.28 kBytes.

Tell Council “I support Light Rail”

Eleanor Grant writes:

Friends and Neighbours in Waterloo Region –

The winning bid to build the LRT in Kitchener-Waterloo was announced Friday, and it comes in under budget.

It will be voted on by Regional Councillors on March 4 in committee, and ratified on March 19. There should be shovels in the ground this spring.

The official announcement: Staff recommend GrandLinq as the preferred team for ION Stage 1 LRT

The winning consortium is GrandLinq. It is not the one with ties to SNC Lavalin, we can be relieved to hear! I’ve put links to all the media coverage on it at the end of this message.

Must see video

The TriTAG group (stands for Tri-cities Transport Action Group) has produced an excellent little video explaining the ION project in 90 seconds:

YouTube video: Where will ION light rail take you?

Please view it and pass it on to your friends 🙂

As you know, our Councillors have been bombarded with negative messages, most of them based on pretty inaccurate information, from those who want to stop the project or tie it up in endless delays.

But I suspect that the silent majority of us see the benefits of LRT (that doesn’t mean it’s perfect), and we want to see it get started.

Councillors need to hear from us at this time.

On TriTAG‘s site please click on the link to “E-mail your Councillors”. Tell them briefly in your own words, why you think the light rail project should go ahead.

You can also register as a delegation at the meetings on 4 March 2014 at 3:00pm and 19 March 2014 at 6:00pm.

I have registered for 4 March. One thing I’ll be talking about is the confidence-building we need to do with our neighbours in Cambridge, so they can feel more reassured during the gap years between Stage 1 in KW and Stage 2 being built to Cambridge in the future.

I’ve learned some exciting facts about the project recently, that aren’t all on the web sites:

The next new iXpress (203) route is being introduced the end of April. It will travel from Sportsworld along Maple Grove (Loblaws warehouse and Toyota plant), into the core of Hespeler, then down Franklin Blvd and over to Cambridge Centre mall. A new terminal area for a dozen bus links is being built on Hespeler Rd near the front of the mall.
Starting in Sept this new iXpress will also go from Sportsworld to Conestoga College at peak hours.
Also starting in Sept, the original iXpress, the 200, will be stopping at Sportsworld (I wish they’d do this sooner).
The adapted bus rapid transit for Cambridge – aBRT – is now expected to start in early 2015. Tenders for this work should go out soon. It will assume the 200 route from Fairview on. Stops will be: Fairview; Sportsworld; Eagle/Pinebush; Cambridge Centre mall new terminal; Can-Amera (YMCA); the Delta (Babcock & Wilcox); and Ainslie St terminal. Ainslie terminal is also going to be spruced up.
Serious talks are underway to improve GO train service to Kitchener, and maybe even reopen the Milton rail corridor to Cambridge. It all takes time – no promises yet! But for the Province to invest in these improvements, they need to see a higher order rapid transit built here, such as LRT.

Three things must dovetail together: a good bus grid, a rapid transit “spine”, and inter-city links. That’s why it’s time for LRT now. Waterloo Region is getting out in front of the population growth mandated for our area. Failure to get ahead of the curve only leads to the wasteful gridlock we now see in the GTA.

Please go to TriTAG now and click on the link to “E-mail your Councillors”. Right now is when our Councillors need to know we’re with them, and that we appreciate their efforts to bring us this far.

Thanks All,

Eleanor

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Media coverage on LRT bid:

Kitchener Post: LRT: $593 million to build, $900 million to run

CTV (2 segments):
http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=299012
http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=299314

CBC News: LRT construction bid pegged at $532M

The Record: Top LRT bid comes in under budget

570 News: GrandLinq recommended group for LRT project

The Region has also released a nice brochure (26 pages long) explaining the Why and How of Rapid Transit: The story of rapid transit in Waterloo Region (6.0 MBytes, .PDF file)

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Eleanor Grant writes a semi-regular e-mail newsletter on social justice issues. You can contact Eleanor at eleanor7000@gmail.com

@FairVoteWRC, @TransitionKW and @LeadnowCA present Connect — 8 March 2014, 1:30pm

Fair Vote Canada Waterloo Region Chapter

Leadnow.ca

TransitionKW

The Fair Vote Canada Waterloo Region Chapter, TransitionKW and Leadnow.ca are teaming up to present Connect:

What: FairVoteWRC, TransitionKW and Leadnow.ca — Connect
When: Saturday, 8 March 2014 2014 1:30pm to 3:30pm [iCal]
Where: Queen Street Commons Cafe, 43 Queen St. S., Kitchener [map]
Register: Leadnow Connect registration page or on the Connect — Leadnow event on Facebook

Here is the message from Leadnow:

It may not feel like it yet, but the 2015 federal election is just around the corner. If we start working together now, we can help hold this government accountable at the ballot box, and elect people with a strong mandate for action on democracy, climate, and inequality. More than that — we can help build a movement strong enough to push for real changes after the election.

Between February 27th and March 9th, people are going to gather in communities across the country to talk about a plan to organize for and beyond the 2015 election. Join TransitionKW on Facebook and Fair Vote Waterloo for Connect!

You can register and learn more at the Leadnow Connect registration page or on the Connect — Leadnow event on Facebook

Please join us there, we need to work together to ensure positive change for Canada in 2015!

Hosted By:

Sylvie Spraakman

Refreshments:

This event is a potluck. You are invited to bring food to share with other guests.

Note:

Food and drinks will be available for purchase from the Commons Cafe. Food is very reasonably priced, and you’re not required to make a purchase.

Dan Burton Presents: In Between Spaces, An Art Show – Friday, 23 August 2013

Cathy MacLellan writes:

Hello Friends:

Next weekend I’ll be celebrating yet another birthday – by attending an art show in Kitchener! On Friday, August 23rd, I’ll be at the Opus Lounge, supporting our local artists and ROOF. Just as Waterloo Region has become a hub for hi tech entrepreneurial enterprises so too the number of new and promising artists has grown exponentially, full disclosure – my daughter is one of them! This event marks the professional curatorial debut of Daniel Burton. Look for the posters around town and check it out here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/484702944951652/
Buying Tickets: http://inbetweenspaces.eventbrite.ca/

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau

Enjoy your weekend!

Cathy MacLellan

And Happy Birthday, Cathy!

Nonviolence Festival’s 9th annual DAY IN THE PARK — Sat, 13 July 2013

Who: Nonviolence Festival
What: 9th Annual Day In The Park
When: Noon to 5:00pm, Saturday, 13 July 2013
Where: Victoria Park Island [map]

Read more, or request a table for your group, at http://www.nonviolencefestival.com/

Housing Opens Doors — Thursday, 27 June 2013

In her latest newsletter, Eleanor Grant writes of several local events, followed by a number of petitions on federal issues as Canada Day approaches ….

EVENT: Housing Opens Doors.
On June 27, ONPHA, the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo, and HHUG will set-up the Housing Opens Doors installation in front of Kitchener City Hall [map] to raise awareness of the importance of affordable housing and the powerful role it plays in Waterloo Region.
ONPHA | HOUSING OPENS DOORS
Join us between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. and show your support for affordable housing. You know that an affordable home has the power to change lives and benefit communities – help us share that message!

Eleanor Grant writes a semi-regular e-mail newsletter on social justice issues. You can contact Eleanor at eleanor7000@gmail.com

Tools for Change: Farm to Fork – Tuesday, 11 June 2013

TransitionKW presents: Tools for change: Farm to fork on Tuesday, 11 June 2013 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm at the Kitchener Farmers Market, 300 King St E in Kitchener.

TransitionKW is hosting a local food cooking demo at the Kitchener Farmers’ Market (2nd floor). Come out to learn about the link between local food and sustainable living, and learn how to cook a great meal with seasonal, local produce! Just $5. Invite your friends!

Register by emailing resilientcommunities@transitionkw.ca

Agenda

Noon to 1:00pm

1:00pm to 3:00pm