Canadian Partnership for Women and Children’s Health (CanWaCH)

Published purpose

This 23-month project will convene the gender equality movement in Canada and lay the groundwork for their collective and collaborative work to advance gender equality from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Specifically, CanWaCH will convene the gender equality movement through two annual Gender Equality Summits and periodic idea incubator sessions. These convening moments will provide a platform to amplify a diversity of voices and opinions, in particular those who experience historic and ongoing marginalization. They will also build coherence around common goals and build strong connections between organizations; center the voices of Indigenous, racialized, gender diverse and other marginalized communities; and engage youth leaders and change makers. These events will create regular touch points for stakeholders to connect, creating a better sense of community and allow the Feminist movement to discuss the most pressing issues and determine solutions-oriented steps forward. A special focus will be put on inclusive participation and collaboration. This project is committed to establishing partnerships with organizations representing diverse communities, and the guidance provided from these lead organizations will help the Network deliver culturally-responsive programming that is inclusive of the needs of the community as defined by the community itself. To ensure this process is as inclusive as possible, CanWaCH will conduct periodic environment scans and membership gap analyses to assess who's voices are being heard and who is not yet included and create a Strategic Engagement Plan to further our commitments to building a diverse Network with reciprocal community-based partnerships. This project will allow the creation of different tools, resources and key takeaways that will strengthen Equal Future Network members and the Feminist movement more globally. For example, the Equal Futures Network will create organizational ‘What we learned reports for engaging with Indigenous and Youth-led organizations’ and other best practices resources to ensure lessons learned for inclusive participation are disseminated. CanWaCH will develop a guiding document to address priority policy and programming barriers as well as create a roadmap to track progress and identify and share solutions, thus helping determine priorities for the years to come while mobilizing different stakeholders to help inform actions that further drive the Gender Equality movement.