Equitas and Mr. Phil Fontaine are delighted to invite you to a Gala Cocktail to honour Ms. Asma Jahangir, recipient of the Equitas Award for Human Rights Education.The annual Equitas Award for Human Rights Education recognizes Ms. Jahangir’s exceptional contributions towards the advancement of equality, social justice and respect for human dignity around the world.

When:  April 4, 2012, 5:30-7:30 pm
Where:  Lambert Room, 54th Floor, TD Tower,  TD Centre, 66 Wellington St. West, Toronto

Tickets: Human Rights Supporter (for individuals): $100,   Human Rights Defender (for corporate purchases and/or additional support): $150
A partial tax receipt will be issued. (Please note that we are unable to accept payment at the door. All tickets must be purchased and paid for by March 29.  Thank you for your understanding).

Hosted by TD Bank Group, proud sponsor of
Equitas’ Play it Fair! program

Asma Jahangir is a leading Pakistani lawyer, advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and human rights activist, who works both in Pakistan and internationally to prevent the persecution of religious minorities, women, and exploitation of children.

Ms. Jahangir was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief from August 2004 to July 2010.Previously, she served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary and Summary Executions. She is also chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Ms. Jahangir will be introduced by the Hon. Ed Broadbent, former Member of Parliament and past-president of  the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. Honorary Event chair, Mr. Phil Fontaine, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and first recipient of the Equitas Human Rights Award, will also be present.

Join us for a unique and exclusive opportunity to meet Asma Jahangir and hear how she has bravely championed the rights of women, children and religious minorities.  Facing very difficult situations such as house arrest, imprisonment and threats against her life and her family, she has dedicated her life to the defence of human rights. Come be inspired by this remarkable woman and hear about how you can be part of building a culture of human rights. Spaces are limited so reserve early.

For more information, you can contact Ronit Yarosky at ryarosky@equitas.org

Asma Jahangir is the Director of the AGHS Legal Aid Cell, which provides free legal assistance to marginalized and vulnerable groups and the former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. For more than four decades Asma Jahangir has been a leading figure in the fight for human rights in Pakistan. She has championed battered wives, rescued teenagers from death row, defended people accused of blasphemy, and sought justice for the victims of honour killings. She has been a staunch critic of laws discriminating the rights of women in Pakistan, and has been an effective advocate in the courts challenging unjust laws and actions whether they be committed by the community or the Government. Her commitment to equality and human rights has led to imprisonment and later to her house arrests. She and her family received various death threats.
On 27 October, 2010, Asma Jahangir was elected as the first woman President of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association. From August 1998 to July 2004 she served as a Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Commission on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions. From August 2004 to July 2010 she served as a Special Rapporteur of Freedom of Religion or Belief of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Ms. Jahangir is an alumna of Equitas’ International Human Rights Training Program.

Download the internship posting.

The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, the guest speaker at the event, shared her experience of visiting Equitas’ partners in Haiti and of seeing the Play it Fair! program in action. The youth she met had made the Play it Fair! program and its toolkit their own and were using it to meet the challenges of their lives in order to become effective agents of change in their communities.

Madame Jean was introduced by Andrew Molson, the Honorary Chair of the event. Also present were Kathleen Weill, the Minister of Immigration and Cultural Communities and Frantz Benjamin, city councillor for the St-Michel district. Both the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal are long-time supporters and funders of the Play it Fair! program. Guests were also entertained by renowned Quebec singer Lynda Thalie.

Equitas extends heartfelt thank to the lead sponsor of the cocktail, TD Bank Group as well as to all the other sponsors of the event:

SNC Lavalin, The Brian Bronfman Family Foundation, AIMIA, CAE, Osler, Voyages Bangkok Tours, Borden Ladner Gervais, HKDP / Hill and Knowlton, MUSE Entertainment, Norton Rose OR

Equitas would also like to thank those who donated their services or items for the silent auction:
Alouettes de Montréal
Bell
Canadiens de Montréal
Claudia’s Catering Service
Délices de Dawn
Hyatt Regency Montréal
Impact de Montréal
Michael Cooper
Serres Edgewood Greenhouse
Yves Rocher

Thank you as well to all the members of the Equitas family who attended the fundraising cocktail and made it the most successful one yet.

We are excited to have so much happening!

• A team is in Nairobi, Kenya, where Equitas and our local partner will host a training for community human rights educators from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

• Together with our Haitian partners, we’re designing a program that will empower women and vulnerable groups to find and implement solutions to the problems they face in their communities, giving them vital experience in building a democratic society

• We’re preparing a training session for youth workers for our Montreal Speaking Rights program which promotes respect for diversity, non-discrimination and youth participation in their communities. Since the project’s inception only two years ago, over 4,000 youth from 103 organizations in Montreal have participated!  Speaking Rights was recently launched in British Columbia, involving over 400 youth from 25 organizations.

• Our Play it Fair! program is gearing up for another summer.  We expect 60,000 children to participate this summer.  Since 2005, over 200,000 children in Canada have participated in this amazing program!

• Together with our partners in the Middle East and North Africa, we are putting the final touches on the new toolkit on citizenship and civic participation.  This will be followed by human rights activities in five countries in the region.

• And much more!

Aginatha’s story

Download the Play it Fair! Day activity sheet.

After the devastating earthquake, Equitas’ partners in Haiti observed that conditions for the most vulnerable populations affected by the quake were deteriorating rather than improving. They reported increased violence, apathy and a lack of will to take on responsibilities for the well-being of the camps. Most importantly, the affected populations lacked the skills to tackle their problems.

Over the course of the last year, with funding from CIDA and the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, eighteen partner organizations in Haiti, supported by Equitas, have been working with local populations to come together to identify common problems and to work collectively to build solutions respecting human rights values.

Seven local initiatives in different regions of the country were undertaken. These included training for parents in displaced persons camps on their children’s rights and their responsibilities for their children. This led to the creation of parent committees to create a more secure environment for children in the camps. In Port-au-Prince, 50 young people living in camps were made ​​aware of their civic responsibility for environmental management. They decided to establish a set of activities in the camps to bring people to adopt positive behaviors to improving their environment with better management of sanitary facilities and waste. Other initiatives led to the inclusion of women in the management of the camps and to the greater protection of women and children from violence.

Thanks to new funding from Quebec’s Ministère des Relations internationales, Equitas will be able to expand its work with its Haitian partners to assess and analyze the success of these initiatives and develop a tool-kit based on those successes in engaging citizens in participatory democracy. Other community trainers and organizers will then be trained in the use of the new educational tool with youth, women and vulnerable or marginalized groups throughout the country.

Summer day camps in Toronto and across the country are helping children to address bullying, discrimination and exclusion in their communities using Equitas’ Play it Fair! program.

Toronto, August 1^st: As summer camps are underway across Toronto, children from all parts of the city will be playing with a purpose. Sites operated by community groups, such as the Kiwanis program in Regent Park, and  Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation city wide summer camps are part of over 150 locations in Toronto where children will be playing games from the Equitas Play it Fair! program all summer long.

Play it Fair! (implemented in Toronto since 2006) is an innovative program that equips day camp staff with the skills to lead children 6-12 through activities which promote respect, fairness, acceptance, responsibility and cooperation. Children play the games, discuss how they feel, and work together to change how they treat one another and those in their community.  Play it Fair! developed by Equitas, is run in day camps and after-school programs offered by the City of Toronto and Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs, encouraging the healthy development of children and building stronger more inclusive communities.

In addition to summer long play, on August 4, 11, 17, over 500 children will participate in Toronto to celebrate International Youth Day / Play it Fair! Day. Community-based activities to mark the event will take place in four corners of the City. On this day, children will play value-based games, and create post-cards and collective artwork illustrating what children’s rights mean to them.

Thanks to the generous support from TD Bank Group, TELUS, and Community Foundations nationally, the Play it Fair! program is flourishing and connecting children and those who work with them in Toronto and 14 other communities from Vancouver to Newfoundland. An estimated 12,000 children will benefit from the program in Toronto and an estimated 70,000 nationwide in 2011-2012. It’s estimated that nationally over 4500 children will participate in Play it Fair! Day on or around August 12^th.

“The games and activities included in Play it Fair! instil important values and attitudes in children, who are learning and see this as another fun part of day camp,” said Ian Hamilton, Executive Director of Equitas. “By encouraging respect and acceptance of differences, the Play it Fair! program is equipping children and youth to work together to solve conflicts and participate in the diverse communities in which they live.”

“Play it Fair! has proven to be an invaluable resource to our children and staff,” said Jessica Lawlor, program director of Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs. “As the largest employer of youth in the downtown east, our youth find that it not only helps them facilitate inclusive and innovative programming, but also impacts how they accept themselves and respect others in the community.”

“Play it Fair! resources help us deliver high-quality community recreation programs to children and youth throughout the City.” said Janie Romoff, Director of Community Recreation for the City of Toronto.

For more about this program visit the Children and Youth Programs section of the Equitas website: www.equitas.org

An electronic copy of the Play It Fair! Toolkit is available to download here.

About Equitas
Established in 1967, Equitas-International Centre for Human Rights Education is a non-profit organization that uses education to advance equality, social justice and respect for human dignity. Equitas’ Canadian Program focuses on knowledge-building, leadership training and participatory education projects for children and youth that promote inclusion, respect for diversity, peaceful conflict resolution and community engagement.
On the Web: www.equitas.org

About Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club
Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs (TKBGC) is a non-profit community services agency that provides low cost programs for 1,100 children and youth living in the Regent Park and Trinity Bellwoods communities. TKBGC is a leader in providing quality after-school programs that support the healthy physical, educational and social development of ‘at-risk’ children and youth. These programs help develop positive relationships; refine social skills; build self-esteem; and provide access to technology, homework assistance and nutrition. TKBGC is committed to developing leadership roles for youth in the communities it serves and is the largest employer of youth in Toronto’s downtown east.
To learn more about Toronto Kiwanis Boys and Girls Clubs please visit www.believeinkids.ca

City of Toronto
http://www.toronto.ca/parks

Media contacts:

Equitas
Julie Kon Kam King
Senior Program Officer
514-758-5525
jkonkamking@equitas.org

Ian Hamilton, Executive director
438-274-9222

Kiwanis Boys and Girls Club
Jessica Lawlor, Program Director
416-925-2243 ext. 24 or
JLawlor@believeinkids.ca

City of Toronto
PFR Media line: 416-560-8726

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In a small village outside of Baghdad, Majida Salman Mohammad met these three young boys playing in a landfill. When asked why they were not in school, they replied, “What is school?” She tracked down their mothers who explained that, having fled the violence in other parts of the country, their children weren’t eligible to attend the local school. Majida took this picture which she entitled “Smile-kid” to highlight the plight of the internally displaced and of these children.

Majida Salman Mohammad, herself, fled Baghdad in 2005 following the kidnapping and subsequent release of her son. Leaving everything behind, the family settled in Amman, Jordan. One day, she came upon the Royal Society of Iraqi Expatriates. Despite working two jobs, she volunteered. From there, she attended a number of Equitas’ human rights training sessions in the Middle East. In June 2010, she attended Equitas’ International Human Rights Training Program in Montréal “which has inspired [her] to continue [her] work in human rights”.

Now back in Baghdad, she is transferring the human rights knowledge, skills and values learned from Equitas to academic institutions, teachers, students and community organizations so that in the future all Iraqi children will be able to attend school and know their rights.