With the Tokyo Olympics around the corner and a trending topic right now, SNIWWOC is bringing Olympians to the table to discuss the connection between race, culture and sports. Sports has a way of connecting people like nothing else, by empowering and elevating communities. It also gives voice to the invisible, underserved and underrepresented. In Canada, many BIPOC individuals do not see themselves in the sports leaders that the media supports. The under-representation in the Canadian sports media affects the opportunities presented to BIPOC youth athletes.
Please join us on Thursday, 8 July for a Town Hall featuring prominent athletes Pamphinette Buisa, Victoria Marchand and Charity Williams.
Pamphinette Buisa has been living on Lekwungen Territories, also known as Victoria BC, to pursue her Olympic dreams and is a member of the National Senior Women's Rugby 7's team. Pamphinette is constantly sharing and bringing awareness about the social justice needed in this world including but not limited to racial justice, safe and inclusive sport for all bodies, harm reduction for people who use substances and is an advocate for people who live in shelters or are unhoused here in Victoria.
Victoria is a proud Anishinaabekwe from Kitigan Zibi and Long Point First Nations. As a proud community member, she helps organize grassroots initiatives, such as the Anishinabe Moose Moratorium and supports the Black grassroots organizations in Ottawa. Today, you can find Victoria training for the 2021 World Indigenous Games as the Captain of the National Indigenous Women’s Soccer Team as well as a former uOttawa Gee-Gee training for the FISU American Games in Mexico, 2022.
Charity Williams is a Jamaican, Canadian activist, community leader, and Olympian. Charity is the youth engagement coordinator for the BC Black History Awareness Society, where she is opening up safe and empowering spaces where BIPOC can feel seen and heard. As well as facilitating decolonizing and anti-Black/Indigenous racism workshops, Charity heads the BIPOC Working Group for her team Rugby Canada, where she is helping create policy changes and an equitable, safe, and diverse sport environment. She is also the athlete representative for the Team Canada Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Alliance.
Only with open and meaningful conversation can we create awareness in the community and level the playing field for all Canadians. You don’t want to miss this conversation.
Closed captioning is available for this event.
The event link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81714357520
For media enquiries, please contact domi@sniwwoc.ca at least 48 hours prior to the event.
We acknowledge that this event is hosted from the traditional territory of the Lekwungen people, currently and specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.