Writing

YWCA Ontario Coalition responds to the 2023 Provincial Budget One of the two themes of this year’s provincial budget, tabled by Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy on March 23, was “Working For You.”  However, YWCA Ontario, a coalition of 10 YWCAs across the province, remains unclear about who the budget is actually working for – because […]

WATERLOO REGION – The National Day of Remembrance & Action on Violence against Women began in 1991 after an incident in 1989 when a lone gunman killed 14 women at the Polytechnique Montréal. The YW Kitchener-Waterloo and Feminist Shift invite you to gather to remember 14 women who lost their lives that day and every […]

August 11, 2022  YWCA Ontario Coalition This week, the Ontario Government re-introduced the 2022 Budget. Although there was an opportunity to address deepening crises in our province, few modifications to the budget were proposed. The proposed budget fails to offer Ontarians real relief from increasing inflationary pressures and fails to address the epidemic of gender-based […]

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                             June 15, 2022 PROJECT WILLOW COLLABORATIVE PUBLISHES RESEARCH REPORT ON EXPERIENCES OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AMONG WOMEN EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS IN WATERLOO REGION WATERLOO REGION, Ontario – Research led by the YW Kitchener-Waterloo and Community Justice Initiatives, as part of the Project Willow initiative, exposes the jarring reality of the impact of […]

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                              May 12, 2022 FEMINIST SHIFT LAUNCHES WITH REGION-WIDE ALL-CANDIDATES SURVEY     WATERLOO REGION, Ontario – Today, the Feminist Shift, a coalition led by YW Kitchener-Waterloo and YWCA Cambridge, officially launched their all-candidates survey focusing on gender-based issues in Waterloo Region.   The survey, presented to all provincial election candidates […]

The YW Kitchener-Waterloo got its start as an organization in 1905, with its emergency shelter. At that time, it was a hostel for women coming from the countryside to work in the city’s many factories producing goods. Throughout the decades since, the organization has continued expanding on its mission to support women, gender-diverse folks and […]

As your two friendly neighbourhood feminists, we’ve talked a lot about how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted women. In fact, a lot of people have been pointing this out, from the uneven distribution of unpaid care work responsibilities resulting from school and child care closures to the even more skewed impact of business closures on […]

Introducing Leslie Kern In this episode we talk to urban scholar Leslie Kern (https://lesliekern.ca/) author of the Feminist City, about how to build cities with women in mind. We explore how cities can show up better for women in caregiving roles and how we build safety into our city for low-income and homeless women, who […]

We’re looking for an energetic public speaker to help us coordinate our expanding Network of Neighbours Violence Prevention Training program.  INTERNAL & EXTERNAL JOB OPPORTUNITY YW Kitchener-Waterloo invites applications for NETWORK OF NEIGHBOURS PROGRAM COORDINATOR (temporary part-time, one-year, non-unionized position) Role Summary: Working under the direction of the Director of Advocacy, and in collaboration with […]

An essay by Nicole Chan as part of our Laurier Essays Series special feature It’s clear where the past year’s worth of increased sinophobia has come from. Visibly East Asian people are used to being lumped together and seen (incorrectly) as one monolithic identity; it’s a common experience for us all that extends far before […]

An essay by Chloe Noguera as part of our Laurier Essays Series special feature The issue of sexual assault at universities struck me before I even picked what school I wanted to attend. At school tours,  almost all guides would stop to speak about the systems their institution had in place to help keep students […]

An excerpt of our latest article from our Feminist Shift column… Since the early days of the pandemic, when it was clear that women were being the most impacted, people from across the country began calling for a feminist economic recovery. In October 2020, Feminist Shift hosted a panel discussion on what this kind of […]

An excerpt of our latest article from our Feminist Shift column… “We found ourselves looking at this data and at our experience as non-profit agencies providing direct services to women and gender-diverse people, and realized that we need to do more than provide front-line services. We needed to advocate for a real systems-level shift that […]

“What if she was supported and he was supported?” Ending Gender-Based Violence Requires A Full-Picture Approach After working many years in the violence against women sector, Stephanie Hill made a significant career change. She went from supporting survivors of gender-based violence to working with the abusers themselves.  “At first, I balked at the idea [of […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 18, 2021 FEMINIST SHIFT  SEEKS CARING WATERLOO REGION RESIDENTS TO PARTICIPATE IN NETWORK OF NEIGHBOURS VIOLENCE INTERVENTION TRAINING WATERLOO REGION, Ontario – The Feminist Shift, a coalition led by YW Kitchener-Waterloo and YWCA Cambridge, has just launched their Network of Neighbours Violence Intervention Training with an open call for caring residents […]

The need for paid sick days—always, but especially now during a pandemic—has been on a lot of Ontarians’ minds. You’ve probably seen the calls from medical professionals, the Ontario science table, all chief public health officers, the labour movement, and basically everyone who has watched the numerous workplace-related outbreaks happen.   Our latest Community Edition article […]

The federal government recently tasked YWCA Canada with undertaking a sweeping analysis of gender-based violence in communities across Canada. They reached out to YWCA member associations as well as equity-seeking organizations and service providers across the country. More than 70 organizations and groups participated in administering community consultations to gather input from key stakeholders and […]

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                         December 1, 2020 THE FEMINIST SHIFT PUBLISHES REPORT EXAMINING STATUS OF WOMEN IN WATERLOO REGION WATERLOO REGION, Ontario – The Feminist Shift has published a report produced by the Waterloo Region chapter of Data For Good which examines the status of women as it relates to employment, poverty, sexual violence and justice […]

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                              September 29, 2020 THE FEMINIST SHIFT TO HOST PANEL ON FEMINIST RECOVERY PLAN FOR WATERLOO REGION WATERLOO REGION, Ontario – The Feminist Shift, a coalition of the YW Kitchener-Waterloo and YWCA Cambridge, is hosting an online event featuring panelists from the public, policy, academe and economic sectors who will be […]

A piece authored by Shantal Otchere for Feminist Shift What began as a meme has become a rallying cry. Following a long history of Indigenous resistance against stolen land, demonstrations, protests and occupations across the country – amid international calls for racial equality – have emerged under the banner of “Land Back.”   From the CN […]

Changing the Elusive ‘System’ Canada is once again at a turning point, the warts exposed in areas like poverty and access to health care, due to COVID-19, coupled with the call to action around police violence with the Black Lives Matter movement has left more people making a commitment to push for systemic change. But […]