We ask everyone to register for the events, sessions, and workshops using your uOttawa email or your professional school board email. Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email. Another email will follow one week beforehand and then a day before the event. We recommend adding this to your calendar. If you are attending several events, sessions, and workshops, please register for each one individually.
Due to COVID-19, all our events will be online on the Zoom webinar platform. At the moment, we regret that we will be unable to provide ASL interpretation and live captioning (in French or English) for this event.
If you have any questions, please reach out to egsc.uottawa@gmail.com and allow for 10-12 hours for a response.
Due to COVID-19, all our events will be online on the Zoom webinar platform. At the moment, we regret that we will be unable to provide ASL interpretation and live captioning (in French or English) for this event.
If you have any questions, please reach out to egsc.uottawa@gmail.com and allow for 10-12 hours for a response.
Tuesday, February 2nd, 7-8pm
Race: A Year in Review
Dr. Marie-Carène Pierre René (she/her)
Bio: Dr. Marie-Carène Pierre René holds a PhD in Education and Second Languages from the University of Ottawa. Throughout her doctoral studies, Dr. Pierre René has focused on “Black” English learning, or what Ibrahim (2004) calls Black Stylized English, among Black Canadian students. Her fields of interest are racialization, anti-racist education and language didactics.
Description: Looking back over 2020, in an effort to find one defining characteristic of the year marked by great challenges one’s struck by one thing; survival. These challenges fall into two categories: a major pandemic that saw the death of so many but the survival of many more and the international protests against racial injustice. Specifically, the national reaction to racism, rearing its ugly head, which can be described as one interracial movement pulling together proving that our ideology is stronger than theirs, in other words, it survived. However, racism is systemic and nowhere is this clearly demonstrated as in education. So now you ask, how is Canada and more specifically its educational institutions, impacted by the racial upheavals and changes that marked 2020? The purpose of my talk is twofold: first to paint picture of race in Canada in 2020 and second to discuss the impact of what went on upon education.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oDQ2M3erT82Brv0BP22w1Q
This event is bilingual, with the presentation in English and PowerPoint presentation in French.
Race: A Year in Review
Dr. Marie-Carène Pierre René (she/her)
Bio: Dr. Marie-Carène Pierre René holds a PhD in Education and Second Languages from the University of Ottawa. Throughout her doctoral studies, Dr. Pierre René has focused on “Black” English learning, or what Ibrahim (2004) calls Black Stylized English, among Black Canadian students. Her fields of interest are racialization, anti-racist education and language didactics.
Description: Looking back over 2020, in an effort to find one defining characteristic of the year marked by great challenges one’s struck by one thing; survival. These challenges fall into two categories: a major pandemic that saw the death of so many but the survival of many more and the international protests against racial injustice. Specifically, the national reaction to racism, rearing its ugly head, which can be described as one interracial movement pulling together proving that our ideology is stronger than theirs, in other words, it survived. However, racism is systemic and nowhere is this clearly demonstrated as in education. So now you ask, how is Canada and more specifically its educational institutions, impacted by the racial upheavals and changes that marked 2020? The purpose of my talk is twofold: first to paint picture of race in Canada in 2020 and second to discuss the impact of what went on upon education.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oDQ2M3erT82Brv0BP22w1Q
This event is bilingual, with the presentation in English and PowerPoint presentation in French.
Tuesday, February 9th, 7-8pm
Celebrating Blackness in Literature
Mante Molepo (she/her)
Bio: Mante Molepo is an anti-racism consultant and award-winning community leader. She works with governments, non-profits and companies to foster equitable working and learning environments where everyone feels included and valued. Mante has worked with the Ottawa Catholic School Board, Scholastic and other organizations to curate thousands of books celebrating Black voices. She is also a founding member and Director of Parents for Diversity, an organization committed to addressing discrimination in the education system, as well as a Director for Amnesty International Canada and the Parkdale Food Centre. In 2020, Mante was recognized as a Community Builder by the United Way, and as one of Canada’s 100 Accomplished Black Women in 2018.
Description: In this virtual workshop, participants will explore approaches to honour and celebrate Black voices in literature. They will examine how anti-Black racism manifests within storytelling, and an anti-racist approach to selecting literature. Participants will explore how one's racial identify informs the way in which we see the world, and why we are drawn to certain narratives. Through an interactive workshop, participants will learn to challenge dominant narratives and texts, understand intersectionality in storytelling, and techniques to select and teach diverse and inclusive children and young adult texts.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aSWmbJ6xST6CeqQ_SfCTAw
This event will be presented in English.
Celebrating Blackness in Literature
Mante Molepo (she/her)
Bio: Mante Molepo is an anti-racism consultant and award-winning community leader. She works with governments, non-profits and companies to foster equitable working and learning environments where everyone feels included and valued. Mante has worked with the Ottawa Catholic School Board, Scholastic and other organizations to curate thousands of books celebrating Black voices. She is also a founding member and Director of Parents for Diversity, an organization committed to addressing discrimination in the education system, as well as a Director for Amnesty International Canada and the Parkdale Food Centre. In 2020, Mante was recognized as a Community Builder by the United Way, and as one of Canada’s 100 Accomplished Black Women in 2018.
Description: In this virtual workshop, participants will explore approaches to honour and celebrate Black voices in literature. They will examine how anti-Black racism manifests within storytelling, and an anti-racist approach to selecting literature. Participants will explore how one's racial identify informs the way in which we see the world, and why we are drawn to certain narratives. Through an interactive workshop, participants will learn to challenge dominant narratives and texts, understand intersectionality in storytelling, and techniques to select and teach diverse and inclusive children and young adult texts.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aSWmbJ6xST6CeqQ_SfCTAw
This event will be presented in English.
Monday, February 15th, 7-8pm
Changing up your “Bookshelf”
Yeti Mallavi (she/her/they)
Bio: Yeti attained her BA in early childhood and elementary education at Concordia University in Montreal in 2015. Her classroom experience includes primary and secondary experience as a part of public schools in Quebec and Japan. She is currently in her first year of doing a coursed-based M.Ed (Studies in Teaching and Learning) at the University of Ottawa. Her interests within the field of education include children’s popular culture and pedagogy, as well as educational technology, using critical race and gender theories as the lens in which she studies them. She enjoys reading manga/graphic novels, playing video games (especially if they have romance), and spending time with her dogs.
Description: Are you looking to add more diverse voices to your classroom’s books, videos and media? Not sure where to start or what are considered appropriate? Join this workshop as Yeti Mallavi gives you tips, suggestions, and resources to make your ‘bookshelf’ is ready for Black History Month…as well as the 11 other months of the year! The focus is on K-12, though can be applied to higher education, or your own personal life.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_semGmaIuRwmxQ2W3W4WiLA
*This event will be presented in English.
Changing up your “Bookshelf”
Yeti Mallavi (she/her/they)
Bio: Yeti attained her BA in early childhood and elementary education at Concordia University in Montreal in 2015. Her classroom experience includes primary and secondary experience as a part of public schools in Quebec and Japan. She is currently in her first year of doing a coursed-based M.Ed (Studies in Teaching and Learning) at the University of Ottawa. Her interests within the field of education include children’s popular culture and pedagogy, as well as educational technology, using critical race and gender theories as the lens in which she studies them. She enjoys reading manga/graphic novels, playing video games (especially if they have romance), and spending time with her dogs.
Description: Are you looking to add more diverse voices to your classroom’s books, videos and media? Not sure where to start or what are considered appropriate? Join this workshop as Yeti Mallavi gives you tips, suggestions, and resources to make your ‘bookshelf’ is ready for Black History Month…as well as the 11 other months of the year! The focus is on K-12, though can be applied to higher education, or your own personal life.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_semGmaIuRwmxQ2W3W4WiLA
*This event will be presented in English.
Tuesday, February 16th, 7-8pm
Decolonizing the Classroom: Anti-Blackness in Canadian Education
Lydia Collins (she/her)
Bio: Lydia Collins is an Author and Sexual Health Educator from the Niagara Region currently residing in Ottawa. She has given various workshops focusing on social justice issues prioritizing consent and sexual health, anti-black racism, and radical self-care. Lydia published her first chapbook of poetry titled Angry. Black. Woman. in January 2019, and released her second To Everyone We've Ever Been in September 2020. Lydia has facilitated workshops and spoken in conferences at Brock University, Ryerson University, University of Regina, and more. Most recently, Lydia has entered her role as the African, Caribbean and Black HIV Prevention Strategy Worker at Somerset West Community Health Centre. Lydia's passion and dedication to writing, sexual health education, and community health are what keeps her determined to continue amplifying marginalized voices.
Description: This workshop will take a past, present and future approach to discussing anti-Blackness in Canada, intersectionality, and the importance of culturally competent programming. As educators — both inside and outside of the classroom — how can we decolonize our teaching practices, and what could that look like?
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Cq9tPAmtQL2loQ-6B0Ig4w
This event will be presented in English.
Decolonizing the Classroom: Anti-Blackness in Canadian Education
Lydia Collins (she/her)
Bio: Lydia Collins is an Author and Sexual Health Educator from the Niagara Region currently residing in Ottawa. She has given various workshops focusing on social justice issues prioritizing consent and sexual health, anti-black racism, and radical self-care. Lydia published her first chapbook of poetry titled Angry. Black. Woman. in January 2019, and released her second To Everyone We've Ever Been in September 2020. Lydia has facilitated workshops and spoken in conferences at Brock University, Ryerson University, University of Regina, and more. Most recently, Lydia has entered her role as the African, Caribbean and Black HIV Prevention Strategy Worker at Somerset West Community Health Centre. Lydia's passion and dedication to writing, sexual health education, and community health are what keeps her determined to continue amplifying marginalized voices.
Description: This workshop will take a past, present and future approach to discussing anti-Blackness in Canada, intersectionality, and the importance of culturally competent programming. As educators — both inside and outside of the classroom — how can we decolonize our teaching practices, and what could that look like?
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Cq9tPAmtQL2loQ-6B0Ig4w
This event will be presented in English.
Wednesday, February 17th, 7-8pm
Anti-coloniality, silence, abolitionism, and the power of non-neutrality of abolitionist resistance
Chesline Pierre Paul (she/her)
Bio: I am Ches, a digital media activist, digital anti-colonial socialpreneur, independent scholar, & global thought leader on anti-oppression as healing, industrial innovation, and positive disruption.
Description: We are intersectionally re-conceptualizing censorship as an abolitionist enactor of anti-coloniality. Here, anti-colonial resistance is portrayed as a truth that potentializes the de-systemization of supremacy as our institutional paradigm. We look at concrete ways to use anti-coloniality, de-hierarchy, and a nuanced take on abolitionism as means to decolonize higher education into a systemic anti-oppressive space.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4yRp5mrBQ6GFyze8w-UgrA
This event will be in French.
Anti-coloniality, silence, abolitionism, and the power of non-neutrality of abolitionist resistance
Chesline Pierre Paul (she/her)
Bio: I am Ches, a digital media activist, digital anti-colonial socialpreneur, independent scholar, & global thought leader on anti-oppression as healing, industrial innovation, and positive disruption.
Description: We are intersectionally re-conceptualizing censorship as an abolitionist enactor of anti-coloniality. Here, anti-colonial resistance is portrayed as a truth that potentializes the de-systemization of supremacy as our institutional paradigm. We look at concrete ways to use anti-coloniality, de-hierarchy, and a nuanced take on abolitionism as means to decolonize higher education into a systemic anti-oppressive space.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4yRp5mrBQ6GFyze8w-UgrA
This event will be in French.
Jeudi 18 février, 19h-20h
What if I had the power not to suffer? Standing tall in the midst of anti-Black racism
Marthe Mafok Foka (she/her)
Bio: Marthe is a doctoral candidate, teacher, mentor, and professional coach. She works with various actors in the education system and with community associations, to promote and to implement equity, and to foster successful professional integration of minoritized peoples who work within education. She is also the promotor of METHIC-EDU, whose main activities include professional development and networking workshops for people of recent immigrant background.
La description: In this workshop, participants will explore the faces of anti-black racism as it is encountered in our daily lives, not to feel sorry, but to become aware and discover the resources they have at their disposal to not "destroy themselves from within", but rather to look it straight in the eye and say "you won't get me! ». This will lead them to recognize their right to have their own identity, a different point of view, a different approach to work or thinking, different tastes and styles, their own accent, etc., and to use it in their studies and professional life, not as a label to be ashamed of or an object of failure, but rather as a richness to be worn with pride and used to advance and succeed.
Inscrivez-vous ici: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o2Z9zU5WQjaLxAmxh1Dg8Q
This presentation will be in French and the discussion will be in English and French.
What if I had the power not to suffer? Standing tall in the midst of anti-Black racism
Marthe Mafok Foka (she/her)
Bio: Marthe is a doctoral candidate, teacher, mentor, and professional coach. She works with various actors in the education system and with community associations, to promote and to implement equity, and to foster successful professional integration of minoritized peoples who work within education. She is also the promotor of METHIC-EDU, whose main activities include professional development and networking workshops for people of recent immigrant background.
La description: In this workshop, participants will explore the faces of anti-black racism as it is encountered in our daily lives, not to feel sorry, but to become aware and discover the resources they have at their disposal to not "destroy themselves from within", but rather to look it straight in the eye and say "you won't get me! ». This will lead them to recognize their right to have their own identity, a different point of view, a different approach to work or thinking, different tastes and styles, their own accent, etc., and to use it in their studies and professional life, not as a label to be ashamed of or an object of failure, but rather as a richness to be worn with pride and used to advance and succeed.
Inscrivez-vous ici: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o2Z9zU5WQjaLxAmxh1Dg8Q
This presentation will be in French and the discussion will be in English and French.
Tuesday, February 23rd, 7-8pm
Poetry Event: Celebrating Black Excellence
Pearline Barrett-Fraser (she/her), also known as Pearl is currently doing her Master’s of Art in Education (Studies for Teaching & Learning). Pearl works as a teacher for the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), and is pursing her passion for education and dance while working with the Luv2Groove Dance Education Company. Her research focus is on teaching Hip-hop dance online. She hopes to encourage physical literacy in a culturally relevant way that keeps students active, engaged and authentic by connecting oneself with the culture of community. Pearl’s piece will reflect on her experiences of being a Black educator and her struggle to find her place. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, she has experienced a series of situations she deems as a Canadian Culture shock. You will hear about her journey to feel accepted and valued, but also her triumph of finding comfort in the truth.
Ches (she/her) is a digital media activist, digital anti-colonial socialpreneur, independent scholar, & global thought leader on anti-oppression as healing, industrial innovation, and positive disruption.This is a multi-lingual piece centering a Queered Blackness where language is the fabric of untaming & self-determining as elements of healing and Black liberation. Language is used to situate us into different legacies of resistance where daring is the one choice that makes risk safer than silence. The multi-linguality is a way to make otherness audible, palpable, and pivotal, it is a resistance made vocally manifestable and vocally defining.
Lydie Masengo (she/her) is a student in the Master’s of Arts Education in the Counselling Psychology program at the University of Ottawa. Her thesis explores self-care practices, and the frameworks by which she draws upon as a counsellor-in-training are multicultural, culturally-responsive, and anti-oppressive. Aside from psychology, she enjoys poetry, volunteering, nature walks, deep conversations, good music, dancing, comedy and, of course, scrolling through funny animal videos. The poem “Closed wound, Healing scar” shares one account of Lydie’s lived experience of racism through the context of education, how it has negatively impacted her, but also how she chooses to refuse and resist the confinement that is imposed on her from being a Black child to now as a Black adult. She intends to shed light on the reality of our lived experiences and to encourage Indigenous, Black, People of Colour to be who we are, unapologetically, to believe in ourselves and be in positions of leadership to pave the way for our future generations. Confuse the system! Shock the system!
Drake (he/him) is completing his MA in Education and Curriculum Studies. His thesis is focused on developing a mentor program for the OCDSB titled Sankofa Centre of Black Excellence which seeks to assist African and Caribbean Black youth navigate the complexities of a racializing school system. He is a Canadian/Trinidadian man who has used his poetry as a way to better understand the world around him. He will be performing a few pieces for the poetry evening. These pieces, a mixture of spoken word and more traditional poetry, delve into relationships, life and death, and living in an oppressive neoliberal late-stage-capitalist world as a person who simply wants to breathe.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NYGFRrVFQ1qk9ndrfjCtcg
This event will be in both English and French.
Poetry Event: Celebrating Black Excellence
Pearline Barrett-Fraser (she/her), also known as Pearl is currently doing her Master’s of Art in Education (Studies for Teaching & Learning). Pearl works as a teacher for the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), and is pursing her passion for education and dance while working with the Luv2Groove Dance Education Company. Her research focus is on teaching Hip-hop dance online. She hopes to encourage physical literacy in a culturally relevant way that keeps students active, engaged and authentic by connecting oneself with the culture of community. Pearl’s piece will reflect on her experiences of being a Black educator and her struggle to find her place. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, she has experienced a series of situations she deems as a Canadian Culture shock. You will hear about her journey to feel accepted and valued, but also her triumph of finding comfort in the truth.
Ches (she/her) is a digital media activist, digital anti-colonial socialpreneur, independent scholar, & global thought leader on anti-oppression as healing, industrial innovation, and positive disruption.This is a multi-lingual piece centering a Queered Blackness where language is the fabric of untaming & self-determining as elements of healing and Black liberation. Language is used to situate us into different legacies of resistance where daring is the one choice that makes risk safer than silence. The multi-linguality is a way to make otherness audible, palpable, and pivotal, it is a resistance made vocally manifestable and vocally defining.
Lydie Masengo (she/her) is a student in the Master’s of Arts Education in the Counselling Psychology program at the University of Ottawa. Her thesis explores self-care practices, and the frameworks by which she draws upon as a counsellor-in-training are multicultural, culturally-responsive, and anti-oppressive. Aside from psychology, she enjoys poetry, volunteering, nature walks, deep conversations, good music, dancing, comedy and, of course, scrolling through funny animal videos. The poem “Closed wound, Healing scar” shares one account of Lydie’s lived experience of racism through the context of education, how it has negatively impacted her, but also how she chooses to refuse and resist the confinement that is imposed on her from being a Black child to now as a Black adult. She intends to shed light on the reality of our lived experiences and to encourage Indigenous, Black, People of Colour to be who we are, unapologetically, to believe in ourselves and be in positions of leadership to pave the way for our future generations. Confuse the system! Shock the system!
Drake (he/him) is completing his MA in Education and Curriculum Studies. His thesis is focused on developing a mentor program for the OCDSB titled Sankofa Centre of Black Excellence which seeks to assist African and Caribbean Black youth navigate the complexities of a racializing school system. He is a Canadian/Trinidadian man who has used his poetry as a way to better understand the world around him. He will be performing a few pieces for the poetry evening. These pieces, a mixture of spoken word and more traditional poetry, delve into relationships, life and death, and living in an oppressive neoliberal late-stage-capitalist world as a person who simply wants to breathe.
Register Here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NYGFRrVFQ1qk9ndrfjCtcg
This event will be in both English and French.
