ImmigrantChildren.ca Archive

Category: Events

  • Entre deux mers * Between two seas: Bridging children and communities, BC conference

    The Early Childhood Educators of BC, the Canadian Child Care Federation, Ryerson University and the University of Victoria School of Child and Youth Care are sponsoring a conference in Richmond, BC May 29-31/08. Entre Deux Mers * Between Two Seas: Bridging Children and Communities includes many workshops, keynotes and sessions on topics related to immigrant and refugee children and families, including:
    The Ethics of Enacting Children’s Right to Citizenship, with Kylie Smith, research fellow at the Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
    Refugee Preschool Children as Cultural Mediators, with Darcey M. Dachyshyn, University of Alberta.

    Bridging Children and Communities through Integration of Diversity Training and Teacher Education, with Valerie Rhomberg,  .

    Working with Newcomer Children and Families: The Research and the Realities, with Penny Coates, Office of Early Childhood Development, Learning, and Care, Daljit Gill-Badesha, DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society and Gany Wawa Tut, a Southern Sudanese refugee and parent in Surrey.

    Skilled Dialogue Strategies for Responding to Cultural Diversity, with Cathy Robb, Affiliated Services for Children and Youth.

    Looking Back and Looking Forward: A Pan-Canadian Perspective on Diversity Theory and Practice in Early Childhood, with Gyda Chud, Vancouver Community College, Maryann Bird, formerly of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, and Debra Mayer, SpeciaLink.

    Faces of Diversity: Supporting Children in Early Childhood Programs, with Becky Kelley, Bow Valley Community College.
    Visit the ECEBC website for the conference brochure with registration details and more.

  • Calling filmmakers

    Radio Canada International has issued a call for short films on the topic of immigration. Migr@tions is the extension of Digital Diversity/Métissé serré, an immigration-themed online competition first launched last year. Submissions must be by individuals over the age of eighteen, but maybe the films can be about immigrant children.
    Deadline for entry is June 30/08.

  • Refugee Rights Day is April 4

    April 4 is Refugee Rights Day in Canada. April 4th marks the day that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to refugee claimants in Canada (1985).
    The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) website has a useful package of materials on Refugee Rights Day.

  • Conference call: 2008 (US) National refugee and immigration conference

    The National Refugee and Immigration Conference will be held Sept 25-26/08 in Chicago. The aim of the conference is to identify issues, emphasize best practices and highlight innovations by providing those who work with refugees and immigrants an opportunity to learn from and to network with one another. Children and families are a focus of this conference.
    From The Center website:

    “Refugees and other immigrants in the U.S. must do their best to manage transitions and adjustments in new communities. Many families endure poverty, low wage employment, and attend schools under strain. Frequently, it is these families’ first experiences with formal education and urban life. Both adults and children experience tension in family relationships since cultural adjustment puts additional stress on marital and parental structures. Along with these struggles, however, comes evidence of strength and resilience, including healthy families, strong work ethic and aspirations, cohesive communities and faith.
    Services for pre-school and K-12 refugee youth and their families may be compromised by differing perceptions and misunderstandings concerning the cultural adjustment process, health, health care, and nutrition, public education enrollment and attendance, academic roles and expectations, and American conventions and laws. Efforts to help refugee youth and families will have a better chance of succeeding if they are based on shared understandings and collaborative partnerships among families, schools, health and mental health providers.
    Proposals are being accepted that address these and other related issues”.

    Deadline for submissions is May 2/08. See the application here.
    Registration questions: Tatiana Davidson. To receive conference updates, email Losheff@thecenterweb.org.

  • March 21

    March 21 is United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

  • Childhood and migration conference, June 20-22, Philadelphia

    A look at child migration through the lens of child rights. This US conference, sponsored by the Working Group on Childhood Migration features keynote speaker Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard Law School and Executive Director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies.
    The conference is raising some of the following questions:

    How are children’s rights and the notion of children as citizens affected by transnationalism, or by movement of parents and children in and out of various national legal systems?What are the emotional consequences of family separation across migratory families, especially for children?
    What are children’s perspectives on migration, how are they to be elicited, how well can they be elicited and represented, and what can these perspectives tell us about socialization and processes of maturation in transnational families?
    How is migration shaping any given culture group’s notions of childhood, and how are cultural notions of childhood shaping migration?
    How do media and policy makers represent children in migration and how do discourses about immigrant children and migrant parents affect their lives and experiences?What can we do to generate better quantitative and qualitative data on the effects that migration has on children? What are the numbers of migrant children and how are they best defined as children in their own rights?

    For more information, visit the conference website.

  • Canadian Council on Refugees spring consultation to focus on children

    The Canadian Council on Refugees spring consultation will focus on children and will be held May 22 – 24, 2008 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
    For more information on this consultation (and other events) visit the CCR webpage on consultations and meetings here.

  • CBC Toronto series: Toronto's mosaic, a reality check

    CBC Toronto’s Metro Morning Ontario Today show is airing a week-long series on immigration, diversity and multiculturalism starting Mon March 3/08. CBC TV will air similar segments on the evening news. Radio-Canada will carry the series in French.
    Toronto’s Mosaic: A Reality Check will explore the following issues:

    • Discrimination that new Torontonians experience.
    • Cultural stereotypes and neighbourhood enclaves.
    • Traditions – home traditions vs. Canadian traditions.
    • Racism.
    • What does it mean to become a Canadian?

    The CBC website has links to several useful resources, including background, statistics, and links to sources with further information.
    CBC news also maintains another good site with information (beyond Toronto) entitled “Immigration in Canada: From 1947 to 2017“.
    On Thursday, March 6, the CBC will host a Town Hall and invites Torontonians to attend and participate in the discussion. The event will be held at the Glenn Gould Studio, CBC Broadcastng Centre, 250 Front St. West. The event begins at 7:30, doors open at 6:45.
    Panelists include:

    Let’s all call in to the vox-box and raise the issues of immigrant children. Here’s how to reach the CBC with your comments: 1.866.648.6714.

  • Call for papers: Intercultural education as social justice

    Intercultural Education, the journal of the International Association for Intercultural Education, is receiving submissions for an upcoming special issue focused on intercultural education as social justice.
    Intercultural Education is a global forum for the analysis of issues dealing with education in plural societies. It provides educational professionals with knowledge and information to support their contributions to critical analyses and the implementation of intercultural education.
    From the call: “This particular issue will focus more specifically on engaging in intercultural education practice that purposefully transcends heroes and holidays or celebrating diversity approaches and that sets as its goal the establishment and maintenance of equitable and just learning environments for all students. We are looking for contributions that push the boundaries of intercultural and multicultural education, that draw on analyses of systemic inequities, that engage critical theories. We are interested, as well, in research articles that critically analyze dominant intercultural education discourses, policies, and practices especially those that may contribute to inequities rather than eliminating them”.
    Topics include (but are not limited to):

    • Colonizing practice and policy analyses of supposedly intercultural or multicultural education practice or policy that reifies existing social orders
    • The corporatization and militarization of public schools
    • Critical analyses of popular existing programs and approaches to intercultural or multicultural education
    • Intersectionality of social justice issue, and particularly intersections of class and poverty with race, ethnicity, gender, (dis)ability, and other identities
    • Globalization and educational marginalization.

    Articles are sought from an international range of authors from the intercultural education and social justice fields.Expressions of intent to submit, with a 50-word maximum description of the proposed topic and focus should be submitted to Paul C. Gorski and follow the submission guidelines.
    Deadline for manuscript submission is November 15, 2008.

  • Manitoba CBC diversity scholarships

    The Manitoba CBC are in their 5th year of awarding $500 scholarships to high school students in their final year of high school and planning to pursue journalism studies.
    Eligible students are “youth who come from an ethnic or ancestral background that is a visible minority or Aboriginal” and who can best answer the essay question: “What is the role of the CBC in our community?“.