Monday September 29, 2008

This was when I officially started the banner. I had asked several students from different organizations on campus to be the first to have their hands on the banner.

From left to right
Sid Rashid (UMSU Vice President)
Thane Carr (My older brother and UMASA member)
Brock Campbell (UMASA Co-President)
Clayton Thomas (UMASA Co-Event’s Coordinator)
Jonny Sopotiuk (UMSU President)

Later on in the day Mitch Tripple (UMSU Vice President) placed his hand on the banner.

I was very optimistic about this project. I thought the banner would be covered quickly and that I would need another one before the Christmas break.
To me asking men to promise not to commit an act of violence seemed a simple request. That anyone would want to lend a hand.

Getting Started

The month of September is almost gone and I find myself pressed for time. There are many things I thought I would have had done by now. Finding time for projects that mean the most to me is always a challenge as a university student.

The first of my goals is to start a University of Manitoba Sisters in Spirit student group. Thus bringing awareness of missing and murdered Aboriginal Women to the campus as well as attending and supporting events and activities that happen across the province.

My second goal is to have a Men’s Banner at the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg, and Brandon University. I want to focus on my own province and then branch out across Canada. The first two I hope to start in the same month and that they can both be running by mid-October. The third Men’s Banner will prove to be more complicated. I need a contact at Brandon University, time to go and present my project to an appropriate student group there.

I have had an interesting journey making the first Men’s Banner shown in a previous post. It is an example banner. One I bring with me everywhere when I talk to groups or march in rallies. My next couple of posts will be of my experience last year making the first banner.

Sisters in Spirit

Sisters in Spirit is an initiative by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. The main objective of Sisters in Spirit is to address violence against Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) women, particularly racialized and/or sexualized violence, that is, violence perpetrated against Aboriginal women because of their gender and Aboriginal identity.

For more information on the Native Women’s Association of Canada go here http://www.nwac-hq.org/en/index.html

For more information on Sisters in Spirit go here http://www.nwac-hq.org/en/background.html

The Beginning

The Men's Banner is a project I started thinking about in 2007. It is a project directed at men to make the commitment not to use their hands for violence against women. I hope to bring a Men’s Banner to university campuses across Canada. This blog is to document how that ambition goes.

I started this in reaction to the missing and murdered Aboriginal Women in Canada. I hope to bring attention to this horrific subject as well as make a positive contribution in my community.