This year’s Lowery Lecturer is Kim Pate, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies (CAEFS) and part time professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. She is an advocate for the rights of women and girls caught in the criminal justice system, for example, Ashley Smith, the young woman whose life ended tragically in prison after long months in solitary confinement.

 Kim will discuss trends towards the increased criminalization of women, especially poor and indigenous women and girls and those who have mental health issues. She has seen first hand the brutal effect of our prison system on girls and women.

 The 12th  annual Grant Lowery Lecture will be held on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at the George Ignatieff Theatre, Trinity College, U of T 15 Devonshire Place, south of Bloor St. just below Varsity Stadium. (easily reached by the St. George subway station)

Doors open at 6 pm. Lecture starts at 7:00 pm. with a reception following the lecture.

Admission to the lecture is free but all donations are welcome.

A silent auction will be held, so prepare to find some bargains! (cash or personal cheques only)

Kim Pate

Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations on earth, with 65% or more of school age or below.  While huge strides have been made in restoring the education sector, with seven million now back in school, quality and access remain huge issues — especially in insecure areas.  Children and child soldiers continue too often to be victims of violence.  Their rights will remain under constant threat without more concerted efforts to end impunity and restore the justice system.  But the most precious gift anyone could give to the children of Afghanistan would be an end to the conflict.  The quest for peace will continue to involve efforts at many levels — from community outreach in districts and villages to concerted engagement with Islamabad and other capitals on the shape of a political settlement.  Afghanistan’s conflict was not home-made: it behooves the world to go the extra mile for peace — for the sake of subsequent generations.

Christopher Alexander was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan from December 2005 until May 2009.  In this position he was responsible for political affairs, including elections, disarmament, governance, regional cooperation, rule of law and police reform, as well as cooperation with ISAF.  Prior to this assignment he served as Ambassador of Canada to Afghanistan from August 2003 until October 2005. He was number two at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 2000 to 2003 and second secretary at the same mission from 1993 to 1996.  A career diplomat, Mr. Alexander joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1991. He received a BA from McGill University in Montreal in history and politics in 1989 and an MA from Balliol College at Oxford University in England in philosophy, politics and economics in 1991. Mr. Alexander was chosen as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2005.  He grew up in Toronto, attending the University of Toronto Schools (UTS) from 1979 until 1985.  He has recently moved back to Canada with his wife Hedvig Christine Alexander – who worked in Afghanistan for seven years, most recently as Managing Director of Turquoise Mountain.  Their daughter Selma Zolaykha Alexander was born in April 2009.  He is now writing a book on Afghanistan.  Chris Alexander was recently selected to be the federal candidate for Ajax-Pickering for the Conservative Party of Canada.

May 13^th, 2010

Door Open @ 6pm

Lecture @ 7pm

Reception Following Lecture

Free Admission

Don’t miss the Silent Auction

(Cash or Cheque Only)

INNIS TOWN HALL

2 Sussex Ave., Toronto

Street Parking & Underground Lot ($6 flat) available across from Innis College

St. George Subway Exit, South of Bloor St.

IS THIS OUR CANADA?

10th ANNUAL LOWERY LECTURE ON CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

Cindy Blackstock will focus on the rights of Aboriginal children in Canada when she delivers this year’s Lowery Lecture on Children’s Rights on Monday, June 8, 2009, in Toronto.

Ms. Blackstock, the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, is one of Canada’s foremost champions for Aboriginal children’s rights. A member of the Gitksan Nation, she has worked in the field of child and family services for over 20 years. Her research and advocacy work has focused on such issues as the over representation of Aboriginal children in child welfare care, causes of child maltreatment in First Nations communities, and the role of the voluntary sector in expanding the range of culturally and community based responses to child maltreatment.

Ms. Blackstock is currently the co-convener of the Indigenous Working Group, United Nations NGO Working Group on the Rights of the Child, co-director of the Centre of Excellence for Child Welfare and a board member of National Aboriginal Youth Organization.

WHEN: June 8, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Innis Town Hall, University of Toronto

HOW TO GET THERE: Innis Town Hall is located at 2 Sussex Avenue on the downtown campus of University of Toronto. The building is on the corner of Sussex Avenue and St. George Street, just south of Bloor Street. The closest subway station is the St. George Station.

• View Innis Town Hall on a map.
• Both Innis Town Hall and St. George subway station are wheelchair accessible.

Learn more about the Lowery Lecture on Children’s Rights.

TORONTO, April 23, 2006—Romeo Dallaire will deliver Defence for Children International’s Lowery Lecture in Toronto on Thursday, May 18. In it he will make a passionate call for all Canadians to face their failures in places like Rwanda and other countries where hundreds of thousands of children – some as young as eight years old – are abducted to fight in armies run by unaccountable armed groups.

The lecture titled Children as Weapons of War draws attention to the links between child soldiers and the global trade in small arms. Dallaire calls on Canadians to take action to ban the export and supply of small arms, light weapons, and other military equipment because the armies that abduct young children to fight are sustained by the arms manufactured by companies in the West.

In addition, Canada must do more than pay lip service to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. As citizens we must let government know that we want it to use its political and military power to protect vulnerable citizens, especially children, in extreme situations such as that which exists in Northern Uganda. In the words of GuluWalk co-founder Adrian Bradbury, people in places like Darfur, or Rwanda, or Uganda, must hear Canadians say, ‘You are not alone. The world is starting to take notice and we have only begun our fight to send your message of peace.’

Children are critical to the success of these armies, says Dallaire, because they are cheap, plentiful, and cook and kill without complaint.

They are weapons but they are also victims. They are forced into these armies, through abduction and due to desperate poverty. They act as cannon fodder in dangerous missions, and serve as sex slaves to their commanders and other male members of these armies.

Military commanders ‘recruit’ children because they can be so easily replaced when they are killed or disabled. This is made much easier because modern weapons – manufactured by companies in the West, including Canada - are so lightweight, easy to use, and widely available.

It follows, says, Dallaire, that to eradicate the use of child soldiers, Canadians must mobilize and pressure government to implement a ban on small weapons trade, but also to work towards implementing – in reality and not just in words – the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Contact:

DCI-Canada
Phone: 416-907-7432
E-mail: contact @ dci-canada.org

TORONTO, May 19, 2005—Children are the only people other than prisoners whose rights are denied by legislation, says Michael Enright, host of CBC’s Sunday Edition.

Society is able to limit youth freedoms so drastically because the media paints a contradictory and simplistic picture of youth. “They are either angels or villains: we are very poor at nuance,” according to Enright. “For instance, if one believed the media we’d think we were in the grip of a youth crime wave. But we aren’t!”

This media distortion does “terrible damage to our children in an unthinking way.”

Enright will develop this argument further when he delivers the 2005 Lowery Lecture, a prestigious annual lecture hosted by Defence of Children International.

This year’s lecture—the sixth—will take place at 7pm on Tuesday, May 31 in the George Ignatieff Theatre, University of Toronto campus. It will be preceded by a short performance by the choir of the Nelson Mandela Park Public School.

Enright’s lecture, “Distortions in a Mirror: Children and the Media,” draws on his 40-plus years of working in the media, in Canada and internationally.

“I am fascinated,” says Enright, “by Canadian attitudes to children. It seems that we love our children but we dislike children as a category. Why else would we repeatedly elect a government that dismantles one of the most progressive school systems on the continent? Why do we continue to undermine the education of our children by claiming that teachers are coddled?”

Simplistic media reporting on children and youth “generates a profoundly unfriendly attitude towards children,” believes Enright.

Enright has a long history of child and youth advocacy work. But why does he do it?

“Well, I have four kids of my own! I am constantly amazed by the insights of children. On a daily basis my nine-year-old makes me wonder anew about the world! And it saddens me when I see a media that cannot capture this nuance and joy and instead deals in stereotypes.”

Contact:

DCI-Canada
Phone: 416-907-7432
E-mail: contact @ dci-canada.org