We decided to have five or six workshops running concurrently at three different times, and at least one workshop each in each session which would be of particular interest to young women, older women, rural women, women who had been active in the women's movement for many years, women who had been involved only recently, and women of color. Many lively discussions and debates went into the planning but of one thing we were sure: while we wanted to address the very serious concerns of women around the issues of education and learning, training and employment, we also wanted to have fun. Many of the nearly 200 women who attended the conference which took place on June 23 and 24, tell us we achieved our goals.

Donna Marion

CCLOW Board Member Donna Marion "dumps the budget" in a game of feminist charades.

Workshops were on the whole, a great success. I would like to particularly mention the workshop Black Women Working For Social Change in which Donna Marshall, a founding member of the Low Income Network Committee (LINC) and Evangeline Cain-Grant, the President of a parent-student association that formed to fight racism in Nova Scotia schools, discussed their struggles to gain education in the face of poverty and racism. They encouraged women in the workshop to share their own experiences, and I was moved by the stories that were told and the energy in the room. One Black woman spoke about growing up "thinking white was better. They gave me a black doll and I despised it. Then I had a daughter of my own and as she grew up I saw her face racism with shame, and I knew we have to be proud of who we are and fight against the bigotry which tries to humiliate us."

In another workshop, Women Overcoming Barriers, Native women, Black women, a deaf woman, immigrant women, women from isolated communities, and a paraplegic woman gathered to discuss the fact that while most women have become adept at jumping over and running around the barriers to education and employment they experience, others like themselves have to overcome the greater barriers of prejudice and ignorance. Later some participants told me of the hurt, anger, and frustration in that session, and of the hope and support which comes in finding a safe place to speak out. They also said there is desperate need for more opportunities through which women can find solidarity, and they hoped CCLOW would address some of their concerns. In fact they would like to organize a conference with CCLOW to create an awareness of the ways in which prejudice, racism, and discrimination are experienced by some women.

Many women found the workshop The Privatization Of Education very useful. Joan Brown Hicks and Stella Lord outlined their research into the Social Assistance Recipients Agreement (SAR) and their assessments of the Federal Government's Canadian Job Strategy Program. Rural women particularly enjoyed the workshop Scaling the Walls of Higher Education: Barriers and Alternatives in which Nancy Wright and Catherine Reed shared their concerns about access to higher education for rural women.


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