At the Edmonton Caucus brunch on Nov. 25/07 Odine Park, a Director-at-Large of Oxfam Canada, talked about an Edmonton coalition working to persuade the City of Edmonton to adopt a Sustainable Environmental and Ethical Procurement Policy (SEEPP).  Our own Marcia Tate has been working with them.  This is a short account of a compelling presentation.

Calgary's pilot implementation, which includes apparel, food products and chemicals, began this year.  This past summer Calgary added living wage issues. The policy is intended to eventually apply to all goods and services purchased by the City of Calgary.  The SEEPP fulfills several commitments to the Triple Bottom Line principles adopted by the City of Calgary.

Ms. Park noted that the majority of clothing workers, at home and abroad, are women.  Worldwide, the majority of farmers tend to be women. 

She said that adopting SEEPP is not enough.  It needs to be monitored to be sure the policy is being implemented.  Some jurisdictions hire a third party, like the Workers' Rights Consortium, to do the monitoring.  The best outcome is when a person is hired specifically to do the monitoring; the weakest is when a current employee is assigned the job.

For more info check out http://seepp-edmonton.pbwiki.com/

UPDATE on the Eilis Pourbain story below:

At our June 24/07 brunch Edmonton Women's Caucus collected $150 for Eilis Pourbain who is returning to Ghana on June 29 for two months.  The money will help those who are interested in starting small business to develop self-employment opportunities through the Centre for Youth Empowerment in the Buduburam Refugee Camp on the Ghana-Liberian border.  Eilis is going with some U of Alberta students who will study at the University of Ghana.  Eilis will teach during the week and go to the Buduburam Refugee Camp on the weekends.  She is taking some books back with her but will buy most of her supplies in Accra, Ghana. 

Our best wishes go with Eilis for her journey and for her work.

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All Our Sisters

Stories of Homeless Women in Canada

Who is Susan Scott?

Susan Scott grew up watching her grandmother knit socks for destitute men in England.

After attaining her degree at Oxford, she moved to Canada in 1967.

A freelance writer, Susan previously worked for three Canadian newspapers.

Susan is the author of No Fixed Address: Tales from the Street.

Susan Scott raises the profi le of homeless women and helps build a broader understanding of the

challenges they face. Based on interviews with over 60 women across Canada,

she tells their stories as they would like to have them told.

Donations accepted for Elizabeth House, a 2nd stage women’s shelter.

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   Regional Meeting of the New Democrat Women’s Caucus

was held  on March 4, 2007 in the Organic Roots restaurant.  Nancy Hanneman  started proceedings with background information on why she was in Ghana and how she and Eilis Pourbain linked up.

Eilis gave the main presentation with a talk about why there was a refugee camp for Liberians on the Ghana side of their common border in the first place and went on to outline why the camp is still there and growing.  She gave us a brief history of the politics of Liberia, pointing out that the president now is a woman, and a brief history of the conflicts and wars the Liberian people have been subjected to.  It was followed by slides of the camp.    Eilis' research involved trying to determine why the residents in the camp are not returning home and what would induce them to do so.

The women in attendance were very interested in the presentation, asking numerous questions.   There is a possibility that Eilis will have a website - which we will post here - where we can find out how and when we might help in her ongoing concern in getting things like books to the people in the camp.

Nancy is the Director of Global Education & International Centre at the University of Alberta.  She worked in Ghana for three months on Children and War a research project for the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre.

Eilis is a student who spent three months living with the local residents in the Buduburama Refugee Settlement.            

The Provincial Women's Caucus AGM held on Saturday, October 21/06 was very well attended by women from a good cross-section of the province.  The executive positions of Co-Chair (Bev Muendel-Atherstone of Lethbridge) and Secretary (Maggie Lockwood of Edmonton) were filled.   Flora Stupich of Calgary has agreed to do the Treasurer's job for 2007.  After an "introduce-yourself" circuit of the table revealed many of the delegates are actively involved in other organizations, Donna Martyn (Edmonton) suggested that we could use a list of speakers with their topics of interest and also a list of groups that might be interested in having a speaker.  These lists will be published in the next WC newsletter.  Please submit your suggestions to idmather@shaw.ca.    The lunch on Saturday earned over $1,000 for the Olga Blondheim Fund.