Hot Tubbin' For Justice

The Power of Integration and Scale: Driving Big Global Social Change This plenary was opened by remarks from the President of the Republic of Kenya His Excellency Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenya is focusing their policies and legislation on women's rights. He said that good leadership is drawn from the aspirations of the population and it must include all in its population. There is an economic, political and moral imperative to centre women and girls in government policy. He ran through the list of things Kenya is doing: enact the first policy to that is focused on pre and post-natal care $480 million USD investment in maternity services and child immunizations reserve 30% of all government procurement for women, youth and the disabled (in the form of credit and training) moving towards the elimination of gender-based violence and female genital mutilation "gender mainstreaming" - to lift women out of poverty, improve illiteracy levels and cure diseases to st

At the end of February, there was a conference held at SFU downtown focused on the theme of work and an evolving economy. The main event was an evening lecture at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre featuring Anne-Marie Slaughter and Van Jones. Anne-Marie Slaughter is a professor at Princeton University whose area of research is in the area of public policy, law and economy. Her talk centred on three themes; care, craft and the circular economy. Care: The context for the caring economy, is looking how the baby boom is impacting the world. 10k people are turning 65 everyday and soon 70% of those 65+ will need long term and 80% of that care is provided by family (because you want older people to stay as autonomous as long as they can). Caregiving jobs are increasing 49% faster than the market. Yikes. Then we have the cost of care - childcare in both the United States and Canada, costs as much or more than housing costs. She gave a shout out to the Horgan government for creating 60k

The most important thing I took away from the GGCLC was the importance of getting out of your sector bubble and to take your values to unconventional venues. I was on Granville Island for the Vancouver Writers Fest, and at one of the venues there was a poster for the Living the New Economy Conference . I was curious so I went home, looked at the website and checked out the program. I am not an entrepreneur but my parents own their own business, my aunt and uncle have an gelato business so I grew up around small business.  As I've talked about before, CUPE BC is running a campaign called the Ten Percent Shift .  One of the sessions was called "Women and Leadership in the New Economy." I was sold right away - I am very interested in the new economy, women's issues and leadership so this was a marriage made in heaven! Plus Vancouver Councillor Andrea Reimer was on the panel and I respect her a great deal.  The event had about 50 people. There were a few booths - this