Connections

Connections - Skills Bank

I am pleased to announce that Connections will be a regular feature of this newsletter. This page is a highlight on the Skills Bank; it will keep us all informed about the active learning exchange which goes on among the CCLOW members. In future issues, you will read about members who act as resources, about a successful networking experience, and about our Resource Center's collections and acquisitions. However, before elaborating on these upcoming features, I would like to write briefly about the history of Skills Bank and its organization.

The first CCLOW Congress, held in 1977 in Winnipeg, decided that the purpose of CCLOW was to promote learning opportunities for Canadian women in order to increase our involvement in social, political, and economic life. However, such learning projects, which would begin to change women's status, will flourish only when institutions and social policies are made responsive to women's needs. Members began to list the skills they would need in order to be effective advocates for women's learning needs.

These women quickly recognized the wealth of skills and experience present within the network. CCLOW members decided to use the network to share skills with each other. Members' skills would be identified and catalogued in a skills bank, along with the preferred means for sharing the skills -- by letter, phone, audio or videotape, by slides or by arranging personal visits. The process of mobilizing our network to promote women's learning became itself a creative learning opportunity. Hence the Skills Bank, a new form of learning exchange through which CCLOW members consult each other as resources was born. Over the last five years it also became institutionalized.

Now, the Skills Bank has a permanent space in the national headquarters of CCLOW. Its vital information on resource persons and their areas of expertise is compiled into two master lists and stored in the national office. CCLOW has hired a part-time coordinator who processes the information, maintains the records, responds to your requests and supervises the Resource Centre. Sema Aksoy, your Skills Bank coordinator, is a Ph .D. candidate specializing in Aging and Educational Planning for Adults. The policy decisions regarding the Skills Bank program are made by the Skills Bank Committee. Members of the committee are Martha Colquhoun and Betty-Ann Taylor, and chairperson Leiba Aronoff.

- Individual Profile: Will appear regularly and spotlight a Skills Bank member who indicated that she can act as a resource person. This interview will focus on her skills, publications, and professional and community involvements.

- Case Study of a Successful Networking Experience: Will appear regularly and report on how two or more members of the CCLOW use the Skills Bank to achieve their goals.

- Spotlight on the Resource Centre: In each issue I will inform you about our valuable Resource Centre collections and the new acquisitions. For example, the Centre subscribes to feminist journals and newspapers such as Canadian Woman's Studies Journal, Mother Jones, Communiqu'elles, and Broadside. The Centre also receives taskforce and other reports from government and social agencies on topics such as wife battering, sexual harassment, and sexual stereotyping. We have an extensive collection of publications on women in the labor force, retraining, educational leave and non-traditional jobs.

If you are a member of CCLOW and if you live within a reasonable distance from our national office, please come and visit our Resource Centre to borrow the material that you may need. If you live in a city other than Toronto, you can still have access to the Centre by requesting material either by mail or by phone.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Until the next issue!

Sema Aksoy
Skills Bank
Co-ordinator