We celebrate the advocacy and collaboration of EN.
Some of the highlights
1. Understanding the harm of colonialism and working within toward the goal to dismantle by mirroring a decolonized structure within our group.
2. Creating a working group with those who heard the many calls to actions.
3. Highlighting initiatives that seemed important to us: Racism, Indigenous issues, Education, Food insecurity, LGBTQIA+ and Disability Justice.
4. We’ve had the courage to face growing pains within the group/disagreements/changes.
5. Make more equitable space by drawing the circle wider and expanding our membership to include the greater Hamilton area.
6. We have been able to move EN into important decision making spaces- both invited and invaded.
(Sometimes we’ve formed collaborative relationships with institutions which have disrupted those who are not committed to equity.)
7. We’ve been amplifying community leaders/organizations who are doing impactful and decolonized work. Lifting up, connecting those organizations and leaders who have worked in isolation.
8. Also creating affinity spaces for those people and organizations who have the same equity vision.
9. Our group became more cohesive, and more connected and that enabled us to be more focused and impactful. We developed a stronger sense of each of our roles. I felt particularly proud of how our group connected to other community organizations and showed up in solidarity with children and families in our community, and beyond. Two examples that stand out are showing up in solidarity with PoBC as they advocated a Black child in Waterloo and also with a Black student here in Hamilton. I do think that EN is exposing the violence of harmful systems and also helping to demonstrate what can be done to demand and make change, to more and more people.
10. We got our website up and running, blogs posted, figured out Twitter and how to effectively use it.
11. What I was very pleased to have done was stand in solidarity with, and listen to the parents of a young black girl who was the victim of racist abuse at school. Others carried the fight through more than I, but in showing up and speaking with her parents who were so very saddened and concerned for their daughter, talk about the racism they faced and their concerns being ignored, I sensed that they finally felt like they were being heard.