Come and see our garden and sit in the sun with a cup of tea. There are vegetables growing and strawberries to taste! If you are interested in helping with the garden you are most welcomed. Please note that the Women’s Centre will be closed during the last week of July and the first week of August. We are very happy that during that time the Centre will be getting a new roof.
The West Kootenay Women’s Association (WKWA), which operates the Nelson & District Women’s Centre requires a new coordinator starting at the end of August or beginning of September. Cut-off date for applications is Friday, July 30, 2010.
Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
*Researching and writing grants and other funding opportunities; presenting these to the Coordinating Collective (CC)
*Liaising with the CC, Grant-writing Committee, funders and contracted employees to coordinate grant and proposal writing and reports as needed
*Working collaboratively with the CC and attending monthly meetings
*Developing, creating and coordinating programs and addressing various women’s issues under the guidance of the CC
*Overseeing programs, finances and budgets in conjunction with the treasurer and bookkeeper, and supporting staff as a part of the team
*Networking, taking part in community outreach, and being a public face for WKWA. (along with other staff and the CC)
*Preparing ads and press releases as required.
Desirable skills and experience:
*Strong organizational, administrative and computer skills essential
*Excellent communication skills, verbal and written
*Experience in fundraising and grant writing for non-profit organizations
*Ability to multi-task, be well organized and self-directed
*Counselling skills & a calm, friendly demeanour. Sense of humor helpful
*Experience and ability to work well and respectfully with women and diversity
*Working knowledge of women’s issues with emphasis on feminist analysis and a dedication to respecting the rights and dignity of all women and people
*Understanding of WKWA and the Women’s Centre an asset.
This position is currently paying $18.50 per hour with benefits.
The West Kootenay Women’s Association encourages all to apply. We request a cover letter outling relevant experience and a current resume.
Resumes accepted by mail or drop off at 420 Mill Street, Nelson BC V1L 4R9.
Applications sent by email WILL NOT be accepted.
For questions, please call Kathleen at 250-352-9916 (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)
The Nelson & District Women’s Centre will be closed the last week in July and the first week of August.
Kootenay Feminism launch poster
During the March events to celebrate International Women’s Day, the West Kootenay Women’s Association is proud to present kootenayfeminism.com, a digital history of efforts of West Kootenay women to create a more just, joyful, safe and supportive society where women and girls are valued for their contributions, and have access to real choices regarding how they live their lives, earn their livings and find their rightful place. The Kootenays is home to Canada’s oldest rural women’s centre, and hosted Canada’s earliest Women’s Festivals. The preservation of these stories, their challenges and successes, is an idea whose time has come.
When Marcia Braundy set out to get her doctorate in Technology Studies at UBC, she believed she had a clear understanding of feminism. A lifelong feminist, Braundy was BC’s first journeywoman carpenter, a founder of Women in Trades & Technology, and an early worker at the Nelson & District Women’s Centre. She has lived in the West Kootenays most of her adult life, where feminism is part of the air she breathes, and strong is just the way women are.
At university, she discovered a school of thought where feminism had become an academic intellectual pursuit. She was more than a little taken aback. Here were people who thought feminism was some kind of abstract philosophical construct, whereas in Braundy’s experience it was a rich and rewarding way of daily life.
When Braundy returned home to the Slocan Valley, she dreamt of putting together a project that would reflect the richness and diversity of the West Kootenay women’s community. Together with the West Kootenay Women’s Association, mother organization of the Nelson & District Women’s Centre, she developed a proposal for a groundbreaking herstorical project. Supported by BC150 Heritage Legacy Fund, BC Historical Digitization Program at UBC, and a multitude of volunteers, The Digital History of 2nd Wave Feminism in the West Kootenays would tell the stories of local feminists as they lived their lives and created our version of the women’s movement’s Second Wave. (The Suffragists were the First Wave.) The women of Trail, Nelson, Kaslo, the Slocan Valley, Salmo, Fruitvale, Rossland and Castlegar could show the world a stunning example of true grassroots feminism.
The Kootenays has a long herstory. Women in this region build on a past that includes our aboriginal sisters, rugged pioneers, shopkeepers, shady ladies, Doukhobor women supporting whole communities with backbreaking work, and a Women’s Institute that brought in Nellie McClung to speak about women�s rights. In the 70s, a new wave of strong women gave birth to a movement, out of which came a wealth of creative and imaginative endeavours: the Nelson Women’s Centre; the Trail Status of Women; the Kootenay Women’s Council; Emma’s Jambrosia; the Images Ad Hoc Singers; the Birthing Project; IMAGES, Canada’s longest-running rural feminist newspaper; 25 years of West Kootenay Women’s Festivals; the Advocacy Project; Kootenay WomenWorks; the Role Modelling Project; and so much more.
Much of this archival material is being digitized and made into an amazingly beautiful and searchable website, a rich resource now and for generations to come. As part of WKWA’s International Women’s Day Celebrations, please join us for the launch on Sunday, March 7th at Touchstones Museum of Art and History in Nelson or on Saturday, March 13th at the Kootenay Gallery of Art, Science and History in Castlegar, from 3-5 PM with snacks. After that it will be up on the web at Kootenay Feminism for everyone to enjoy, learn from, and be enriched.
by Moe Lyons
The West Kootenay Women’s Association presents:
IMAGES – Kootenay Women’s Paper: A Primer on Feminism (1973-1991)
Edited by Dr. Marcia Braundy, Format: CD
Nineteen years of IMAGES – Kootenay Women’s Newspaper represents the early writings of many of British Columbia’s prize-winning women authors and artists as they struggled to develop their personal and political perspectives on Second Wave Feminism.  It documents the struggles for effective and satisfying economic, social and political lives for women in rural BC, and links arms and words with women from around the world, telling their stories along with our own. Theme issues address the major challenges of our times: Aging, Health, Machinery, Sexuality, Reproductive Rights, Working, Lesbian life, Mothers and Daughters, The Arts, Media, Feminism, Technology, Violence Against Women, Travel and Relationships. “Mixed” issues covered local, regional and national news from feminist perspectives.
IMAGES, produced by volunteers, and supported solely by advertisements, subscriptions and donations, is a record of small business development in the Kootenays from 1973 to 1991. The creative advertisements for both male and female owned businesses provided long term financial support. It is a record of the challenges, successes, failures and learnings of social, political, educational and economic development in the West Kootenays over a period of significant period in Southeastern British Columbia. The quality and thoughtfulness of the writing is some of the best produced in Canada during the time, and we are thankful to the BC150 Heritage Legacy Fund for allowing us to bring this historical and still quite relevant journal back into the public eye. We have been told by young women who have volunteered on this project of the essential importance these articles have to current issues being faced by them.
85 issues of the paper were scanned, digitized, made readable and searchable, and placed on a CD, which is being made available to individuals ($20) and institutions ($50) in continuing efforts to support the Nelson Women’s Centre, the oldest rural women’s centre in Canada, still an activist and going concern.
Producing IMAGES-A Primer on Feminism is the first phase of a larger project documenting and digitizing the development of 2nd Wave Feminism in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia, a veritable hotbed of feminist activism. From Canadian founders of the Voice of Women, Project Ploughshares, and Canada’s first rural women’s centre, through B.C.’s first Women’s Festivals, early women’s economic development initiatives and founding the National Network for Women in Trades and Technology, documents and reports, posters, interviews and soundtracks will, over the next year, be launched as www.kootenayfeminism.com, and connected to the Nelson Women’s Centre website, freely available to the public, thanks to the Barber Historical Digitization Project at the University of British Columbia.
Please order the CD from the West Kootenay Women’s Association, 250 352-9916
or email wkwomyn@netidea.com with IMAGES in subject line,
and send a cheque for $20 individual/$50 institutional to
WKWA-IMAGES, 420 Mill Street, Nelson, BC, V1L 4R9
For project information, contact Marcia Braundy