Towards full Pinoy participation in Multi-cultural Canada

INQUIRER.net
Posted date: September 05, 2008

The National Alliance of Philippine Women in Canada (NAPWC) will hold a Canada-wide research conference on Filipinos and the Filipino community on November 6-9, 2008, at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.

Called "Filipino Community and Beyond: Towards Full Participation in a Multicultural and Multi-ethnic Canada,” it will showcase the accomplishments of its three-year project in partnership with Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism. It will also be an opportunity to share community-based research papers using mainly participatory-action based models, some of which have been presented at international conferences.

"This conference will bring forward the most important issues confronting Filipinos and their community and how they address them in the course of their settlement and integration in Canada," said Cecilia Diocson, executive director of NAPWC.

The project started in January 2006 and focuses on four major areas of concerns: 1. enhancing Filipino women's equality and human rights;2. making the Filipino youth count in the community's future; 3. combating systemic racism; and 4. overcoming economic marginalization.

The conference will figure the project's enduring impact on community development; skills and capacity building; community-based research and collaboration with the academe and other research bodies; and public policy engagement. This way, NAPWC will underscore over two years work of educating, mobilizing and organizing around these four areas of concerns.

The conference will also report on the project’s major activities, starting with its formal launching in a conference that brought in delegates from various parts of Canada and invited guests from outside the Filipino community in May 2006. It will also highlight some of NAPWC's major accomplishments in the last two and a half years:
• National and echo-consultations on "Making the Filipino Community Count" hosted by local community groups in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

• Community-based researches and studies on youth, racism, violence against women, settlement and integration; economic marginalization and social exclusion; and immigration.

• Community's collaborative research with academics and other research agencies on various subjects related to community participation, settlement and integration.

• Public policy engagements with various government bodies at federal, provincial and municipal levels.

• Formation of various community groups to enhance social participation and assist in settlement and integration of Filipinos in a multicultural society.

• Community economic development initiatives that enhance the success and sustainability of NAPWC’s community-based volunteer member organizations of.

• Skills and capacity building programs that helped develop community leaders and resulted in employment and gainful opportunities for some members of the community.

• Networking and broadening links with other communities, groups and individuals outside the Filipino community.
Speakers and resource persons – mainly community leaders, community-based researchers, academics and scholars – have been involved in the project's various programs and research.

The workshops will explore in-depth concerns on women and youth, economic marginalization and systemic racism – issues drawn largely from the community and its members' lived experience and reality. The conference will also include a cultural component which is an important tool for community development and social participation.

Besides showcasing the project's accomplishment, the conference is also an effort to generate continuing research collaboration among academics, other research bodies and community-based researchers. This collaboration will be based on the participatory action model that requires direct involvement of members of the community and further develops tools for social analysis, community-based research and community action.

It will also encourage production of publications that can be useful for dissemination as part of NAPWC's broad work of educating and informing the larger public about the Filipino community and its efforts at settlement and integration. It will help construct an analysis of Filipino migration into Canada that incorporates gender as integral in its framework, and it will initiate the building of a structure that will facilitate this continuing research collaboration between academics and community-based researchers.

"Ultimately, this conference is a result of the continuing assertion of Filipinos and their community to enhance full participation and integration in Canadian society by making efforts at overcoming economic marginalization and combating systemic racism" confirms Diocson.

Registration for this 3 ½ day conference is now open. For more information or to register, contact the NAPWC conference secretariat:

In Ontario:Joy C. Sioson, pwcontario@yahoo.ca;
416-519-2553

In Quebec: Cecilia Diocson, pwcofquebec@gmail.com; 514-678-3901

In British Columbia:Leah Diana, pwc@kalayaancentre.net;604-215-1103

The rest of Canada can also contactJoy C. Sioson and Cecilia Diocson.