EFCL Anti-Racism Project
A partnership with Leagues and three BIPOC organizations
The City of Edmonton funded EFCL’s Anti-Racism Project through its Anti-Racism Community Safety fund.
This one-year project brought together three BIPOC organizations along with the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues in ways that create dialogue and learning in Community League spaces.
Our partners are Ribbon Rouge, Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and Sisters Dialogue.
Below is a list of the work each of these partners did with four participating Community Leagues across Edmonton.
- Ribbon Rouge: arts based workshops
- Bent Arrow: medicine wheel/Treaty 6 education
- Sisters Dialogue: inclusion workshops
About Our Partners
The Ribbon Rouge Foundation is a grassroots organization that focuses on health equity and facilitates social justice through the Arts.
Bent Arrow is dedicated to supporting the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being of Indigenous children, youth, and families in Edmonton and surrounding areas. We provide culturally responsive programming that promotes healing, resiliency, and cultural connectedness.
Sisters Dialogue (SD) is comprised of a diverse group of Muslim women based in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 Territory (Edmonton) with a goal to provide culturally safe spaces and supports for racialized Muslim women and girls through an intersectional, collaborative, and women-centred framework.
About Participating Community Leagues
The community of Oliver is the largest by population, the most economically, ethnically and demographically diverse community in the City of Edmonton.
The Strathcona Centre Community League offers recreation and social activities to neighbours and works to improve the neighbourhood and quality of life for residents.
We welcome and connect Alberta Avenue neighbours in building a vibrant community. We are an inclusive organization that shows compassion, leads with responsiveness, and makes impact through collaboration.
The Meadows community has approximately 22,000 residents, which makes it one of the largest community leagues in the City of Edmonton. The league is very active and chooses to bring many different activities and programs to its members such as movie nights, ski nights, community cleanup, etc.
Where Does This Work Come From?
Our proposal for this grant was built from what we learned from our Safewalk Pilot project that we ran in collaboration with Sisters Dialogue in 2022 (read our case study here). That work sought to build support and safety for racialized, visibly Muslim women in northeast Edmonton – in response to violence, racism, and Islamophobic attacks in our city. Our aim was to increase a sense of community safety and wellbeing through building relationships between Community Leagues, community members and Muslim women.
RESULTS
What resulted was a Sunday morning walking group, a regular park meeting and a weekly Moms and Kids playground program through the South Clareview Community League. This program successfully engaged more than 20 Muslim women and their children each week through August 2022.
From the success of this August playground program, the South Clareview Community League offered their hall once a month, and with the support of SafeWalk and Sisters Dialogue, the first two Women’s Gatherings were held in October and November. These events saw more than 40 women attend. In October, Mauritanian, Palestinian and Iraqi women shared food and talked about their culture. The second event featured Somali food and had reading of a local Somali author’s children’s book and a presentation from the Hoyo Collective, an organization that supports African mothers.
