Peace Days 2021: Events that remain online
27 January 2022Peace Days may be over, but Peace Work continues 365 days a year!
For the past four years, the Peace Network for Social Harmony has organized a Peace Film Soirée, in partnership with the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. This year, the event took place on October 14 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ cinema. After a screening of the very moving film LA MIF the young women from La voix des jeunes compte took the stage to present their testimony and their proposed solutions to issues of violence against girls. Thanks to their involvement with the Peace Network, at the end of the evening, the girls had the opportunity to speak at length with Michaëlle Jean (former Governor General, whose foundation is a Network member) and Bochra Manaï (Montreal’s Commissioner for the Fight against Racism and Systemic Discrimination). These opportunities for discussion bring added promise to the girls’ work, and is in keeping with the Peace Network’s focus on uniting people from different backgrounds, with the aim of strengthening peace through collaboration!
Founding of La voix des jeunes compte youth collective (#metooscolaire)
La voix des jeunes compte is a youth collective, composed mainly of young women aged 15 to 21, which has been mobilizing for more than 4 years against sexual violence in schools, to raise awareness and to emphasize prevention. Their work is undertaken with a central objective of having the Quebec government adopt a law that offers elementary and secondary school students the same protection as that granted to CEGEP and university students. This includes the implementation of effective courses in sexuality and a recognition that more support, tools and training must be provided to school employees. La voix des jeunes compte stresses that real and lasting change is necessary to counter sexual violence in all of Quebec’s schools. The young women in the collective have been mentored and supported for the past 5 years by youth worker Clorianne Augustin, as well as Mélanie Lemay, co-founder of Québec contre les violences sexuelles.
The Mouvement pour des écoles sans violences sexuelles (MESVS) was founded in 2018 following the public denouncements made by this courageous group of girls and in order to provide logistical support to the young women. The Peace Network actively collaborates with this group through its involvement with the MESVS.
