| Federal cutbacks will hurt literacy promotion in Alberta
Literacy Alberta is scrambling to come up with ways to continue its programming after its budget of $1 million was cut in half by recent federal government cutbacks.
Executive director Janet Lane says her organization will no longer be able to host a literacy conference next year nor can it afford to advertise its literacy help line or programs. She says there could also be staffing cuts and Literacy Alberta might not be able to afford to send its literacy library of professional resources to communities that request it.
"It’s going to mean people aren’t as aware of literacy and they won’t realize there’s help out there," says Lane.
Literacy is more important than ever she says, because Albertans must to be able to compete in today’s knowledge-based economy. Forty per cent of Albertans currently struggle to read well enough to do so effectively.
"It’s a pullback at the time we need to do more," says Lane. "Literacy is an issue we can’t ignore."
The federal government has stated it plans to invest money in national programming, but Lane says she’s unsure what that will mean for Alberta.
U of C women’s centre opens
The University of Calgary’s first women’s resource centre will officially open its doors on October 18. Women’s centres have long been a feature of most universities in Canada but the U of C has never had one. Stephanie Garrett, executive director, says the centre will be making up for lost time.
"It’s going to be more ambitious than most of the women’s centres in the country in the scale we’re doing things. We’re hoping to go from having no women’s centre to having the top women’s centre in the country in a year," says Stephanie Garrett, executive director of the new centre.
The centre will offer a meeting space for women’s groups on campus, a safe space for women in crisis and a resource library on gender issues. Garrett says the centre will also organize a mentorship program that will connect students with successful women in their field of interest and a lecture series that will bring prominent women to speak at the university. The women’s resource centre will also offer work placements and internships for students.
Garrett says the centre is working to be as inclusive as possible with programming available for international female students, women of colour and lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered students who face discrimination on campus and in Calgary.
It will be a women-only space. Garrett says men will be allowed to volunteer and to access resources from the library, but they won’t be allowed into the centre.
"We want it to be a women’s only space because we believe women need a safe space to come together to dialogue about issues that are important to them," she says.
Garrett emphasizes that the women’s centre will be entirely volunteer driven.
"Our goal is to leave programming open, let women who want to run the programs and be a part of them take the initiative and we’ll advocate on their behalf," she says.
For more information on the centre go to www.ucalgary.ca/women. |
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