Promising Practices

The Committee heard of many success stories, programs and initiatives that witnesses have described as effective. To the greatest extent possible, to ensure accuracy and to reflect the positive nature of the results, descriptions have been taken verbatim from the testimony of the witnesses.

A. Barriers to Participation

• The Girls Action Foundation is leading the Young Women’s Leadership in Rural Development project with “girl-serving organizations and rural communities across Canada,” because “girls in those areas face the unique challenges of more difficult economic circumstances, fewer choices of career and education, and the need to go out of their community often for post-secondary education — it's harder to access support if they are experiencing violence.” In addition, “there are often more traditional gender expectations of women to fulfill the mother role only, and so on.”[1] The Girls Action Foundation is “working with some [F]irst [N]ations as well,” as girls in First Nations communities “face many of the same challenges as rural communities do, being isolated and dependent on resource economies, they also have the additional challenges of the history of colonialism as it has impacted their families and caused a lot of difficulties — barriers to get over in terms of success — financial, parenting, and so on.”[2]
• YWCA’s Power of Being a Girl “is a violence prevention conference that is hosted in over 25 communities and reaches over 4,000 girls each year. It focuses on issues such as healthy relationships, body image, sexual health, bullying, and Internet safety.”[3]
• Plan Canada launched the Because I am a Girl initiative in 2009 “to raise awareness of the issues and rights around girls.” It is based on the idea that “investing in girls is the most direct route to social change.”[4] The initiative has a component that “is a life skills program designed to provide educators, student leaders, and community group leaders with a turnkey tool kit to address the issues that girls are presented with as they grow into women. This program addresses issues that girls face and provides activities, discussion points, resources, and tools that girls can use to be empowered to work through the issue and gain that life skill.”[5] The initiative works directly with school boards and uses a girl club model, which “is designed for girls to work on issues together in a safe environment to champion each other to reach their full potential.”[6] The initiative created modules on a variety of subjects in consultation with the private sector: “Some examples include Visa, which provided the expertise for financial literacy modules; Dove and Unilever, which provided the expertise for the self-esteem body image module; IBM, which provided for the ICTs and Internet safety module; Kraft Foods, which provided the expertise on nutrition; and Coca-Cola, which provided expertise on women in business. This provided us with not only expertise but additional financial resources to ensure that these materials are provided to educators free of charge.”[7]
• FemNorthNet, by CRIAW, “is a research alliance focused on three northern communities: La Loche, Saskatchewan; Thompson, Manitoba; and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador,” as well as “Labrador West.”[8] The FemNorthNet project has a “network [that] includes municipal officials, community-based organizations, national organizations, and researchers from universities across the country.”[9] The research examines the “need for investment in a range of social infrastructure to support young women and improve their economic prospects, especially those in northern communities.”[10]
• First Peoples’ House, at McGill University, has an “annual Eagle Spirit High Performance Camp. It runs for a long weekend in May and brings together [A]boriginal youth ages 13 to 17 from all over the country to come to McGill, spend a weekend here, learn about health careers, amongst others, and find their passion. And there's a lot of focus on sports and physical fitness and overall well-being... [First Peoples’ House sees] a lot more campers, actually, apply to McGill.”[11]
• The Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne (FESFO) “has been approached by the UN to develop a series of manuals as part of the A World of Difference project. The manuals deal with issues that include violence, sexism, racism, communication and conflict resolution.”[12]
• The Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW) began a “program called I Can MANifest Change. It focuses on engaging young men in ending violence against women through exploring such topics as masculinity, femininity, sexism, and sexual violence. It is a program that has hope and celebrates that not all men are perpetrators of violence.”[13]
• “A strong example of promising practices comes from the National Association of Indigenous Institutes of Higher Learning, which emerged in recent years in response to the need for post-secondary programs that would better meet the learning requirements for [F]irst [N]ations people and girls. An alternative to provincial colleges and universities, the indigenous institutes of higher learning provide programs from an indigenous perspective, including knowledge of one's identity and language. Many of these institutes are located within [F]irst [N]ations communities, thereby improving access for students living in remote areas. They are also located in larger urban centres.”[14]
• The Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO) has the Immigrant and Refugee Youth Program, with “the goal... to build a protective support network for youth through the schools and service providers by offering a safe space where at-risk newcomer youth can make a healthy transition and integration into Canadian society while increasing their ability to meet their full-time academic potential.”[15] They work with high schools, with children 13 to 18 years old.[16] “The environment of the group simulates a Canadian workplace. There's a time schedule. Someone in the group is targeted and trained to gather the people in the group when it's time for the group to meet. Someone is the timekeeper, there's a facilitator, and they talk about issues such as time scheduling, conflict management, résumé building, and how to present yourself at a job interview. During the course of the 14 weeks different people representing the professions come in and talk about what it took to get into their profession.”[17]
• OCISO’s Career Mentoring Program “provides matches between internationally trained professionals and Canadian counterparts. Together, they help the newcomer manoeuvre through the Canadian job market.” The program recently “received a small amount of money to... replicate it for youth.”[18] The program has been ongoing for five years and they “have worked with 200 Canadian mentors and matched them with internationally trained immigrants... The mentors share their knowledge of the Canadian workplace, cultures, support network development, and advise on job-search prospects. Over 60% of mentees exit the program with jobs in their field, and another 15% pursue further education toward attaining employment goals.”[19]

B. Life Skills and Financial Literacy

• FESFO offers “financial literacy program for girls and boys... how to do a proper budget, and manage a line of credit... These financial literacy courses have to include a gender-specific element.”[20]
• The Community Youth Team Program of Coast Capital Savings Credit Union, every year, “gives 25 to 30 grade 11 and grade 12 students training in financial services and leadership experience. Through the Coast community youth team program, these students train and work in [the] branches, but they also help organize and participate in Coast community events. This gives them not only valuable work skills, but also public speaking and leadership experience at an early age.” They have had “over 300 students graduate from the program. Several alumni are now full-time employees at Coast in various roles, while others have gone on to pursue careers that require strong financial knowledge and skills.”[21]
• Coast Capital Savings Credit Union has a Youth Advisory Council, that “deliberate[s] on and allocate[s] a portion of our Community Giving dollars.” A central responsibility is “to carefully analyze proposals to ensure they fit with [Coast’s] giving objectives.” The program allows “the participants [to] gain knowledge on business philanthropy and the important role it plays in developing communities. They also gain critical thinking and analysis skills.”[22]

C. Transition from School to Work

• YWCA’s Youth Eco Internship Program (YEIP) offers paid internship opportunities within the non-profit and community service sector to youth aged 15 to 30 across Canada.[23]
• Linamar Corporation works “with local school systems to sponsor female apprenticeships. [Linamar has] committed to five female apprentices per year for the next five years.”[24]

A. Non-Traditional Employment

• “Techsploration provides young women from diverse backgrounds in grades nine through twelve with opportunities to learn about careers in these fields. It also helps them to understand the significance of high school math and science to their future careers, and it helps them create awareness about the critical role of work in their lives. Techsploration gives young women the opportunity to enhance their public speaking, presentation, and report-writing skills. They also learn about communication, leadership, and teamwork — all skills that employers want. It helps ‘techsplorers’ to increase their levels of self-confidence, self-esteem, and cultural awareness, but more importantly, Techsploration provides information. Information is empowering and absolutely changes lives.”[25]
• Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science & Technology has a Summer Research Program, where “grade eleven girls... come and spend six weeks working in a research group at the University of Alberta during the summer,” and are paid. The girls “meet women engineers and scientists, and often at the end of the six weeks... they discover it's something they want to do and something that's relevant to them.”[26]
• Linamar Corporation has “summer skills camp for young girls, aged 10, 11, or 12, to try to introduce them to the idea of skills and trades as a potential career.”[27]
• “Actua's national girls program was developed in 1999 in response to a noted pattern of decline in the participation of girls in [their science, engineering, and technology] camps across the country....”[28] The “all-girls program model... provided girls with a safe, non-judgmental, and fun environment in which to explore, create, and interact with role models.” It allows girls to “acquire critical life and employability skills, such as team-building, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, financial literacy, and technical proficiency.”[29]
• Actua’s National Aboriginal program “engages 30,000 aboriginal youth a year in 200 communities across the country. It's a huge geographic reach and area of focus for [Actua], including rural and remote communities as well. A significant emphasis for [Actua] is to get into every possible tiny fly-in and boat-in community in the country.”[30]
• GE Canada has “started a program this year focusing on retention rate, investing more in [the] GE women's network and doing more education about flex time, flex hours.”[31]
• Linamar Corporation has “held several workshops, at which [they] bring together high school students with female tradespeople within [Linamar] and in other companies to learn about these careers.... They get to learn about all kinds of different careers in skilled trades, science, and technology...” [32]

A. Women in Decision-Making Positions

• YWCA’s program Y Act Up “focuses on the leadership and decision-making skills of girls and encourages life-long civic engagement in their communities.” The program is based on the idea “that when girls are educated and empowered they become leaders at home, in the community, and beyond, improving their economic prosperity, as well as those around them.”[33]
• Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women’s (CRIAW) Engagement, Communication and Outreach team (ECO) are “a youth caucus, focused on reaching out to other young women and encouraging them to get involved.”[34]
• Chubb Insurance Company of Canada aims to “retain, develop, and promote the best talent in our industry by creating development programs specifically geared toward women so that we would have them ready in equal numbers to their male counterparts to enter into management ranks... The mission is ‘Reach up, Reach out, and Reach down’, and to work with women within the company, within our industry, and with the communities we serve to support women at all levels.”[35]
• Mouvement ontarien des femmes immigrantes francophones (MOFIF) has a “project ‘Viser haut’... The aim of the project is to encourage women to get involved in decision-making positions such as boards of directors... Women were given tools, through a comprehensive two-day training session on governance, including pre-training orientation and post-training placement.”[36]

B. Self-Confidence

• The Girls Fund, of the Canadian Women’s Foundation, provides financial support for “research-based programs for girls that build their protective factors and engage their bodies, minds, and spirits.” These programs are in “all-girl environment for girls aged nine to thirteen to explore science and technology, develop healthy relationships with peers and adults, get physically active, learn financial and media literacy, and above all learn to think critically, take on leadership roles, and build strong social connections.”[37] For programming for Aboriginal girls “there's an added layer of promoting cultural connectedness and strengthening ties to elders and other female mentors in the community, which is a really critical piece of programming for that group.”[38]
• YWCA GirlSpace “offers quality programming that addresses key social issues facing girls today and responds to their very diverse needs.”[39]

C. Mentoring and Role Models

• BPW Canada has a “mentorship program, within BPW itself, within the national, provincial, and local chapters.”[40]
• Coast Capital Savings Credit Union has a mentorship program to “identify high-potential individuals... they are as likely to be women as they are to be men... They are mentored. They're given special leadership training and leadership assignments on projects that are important to the organization... When they work on important projects and bring those to fruition, it raises the profile of these individuals, and everybody wants them on their team.”[41]
• “The Femmes Équité Atlantique project was about bringing generations together and achieving socio-economic equity for francophone and Acadian women living in minority communities in Atlantic provinces. The project was titled ‘La rencontre des générations’. Girls and women of different ages attended meetings as part that project. Those meetings covered four aspects: girls' participation, skills, self-esteem and critical consciousness.”[42]
• The Quebec Native Women's Association has a mentorship program that operates “in a circle of leadership that pairs young girls with mentors. But more specifically, it's not just in terms of pairing a woman with a girl, but also pairing a girl with an interest, perhaps, in becoming a member of Parliament, with somebody who is already a leader in politics; or a girl who's interested in becoming a lawyer... with somebody who's already a member of the bar, so that they're able to exercise and see a particular path based on their skills and abilities.”[43]