[opirgyork] More Upcoming events!

[OPIRG York]

Hey Folks!

We got a couple new things to send out for the week- please take a look at
the May Day March information and note there will be a free bus leaving
from teh Jane Finch community, which is right outside York! If you need to
get to the March, please take the bus! Also check-out the other new
upcoming events, callouts and submissions! Also a job posting from SCM.

If you are interested in helping OPIRG York poster around campus next week
for May Day, please email victoria at opirgyork.ca.

If you're interested in volunteering anytime at OPIRG York, or have any
questions, please get in touch with Victoria, at victoria at opirgyork.ca. We
always are in need of volunteers! And stop by the OPIRG York office anytime
-- Room 449C Student Centre!

-- OPIRG York


****************
*TODAY'S DIGEST:*

1. *SATURDAY*: Social Justice Discotech: Social Justice Discotech:
Hands-On, DIY, Skills-Share Fundraiser!
2. *May 1*: Honouring our Communities: The 9th Annual May Day of Action +
Bus from Jane Finch Info.
 3. *May 5 & May 7:* The Struggle For Economic Justice: May Day Celebration
and Panel Discussion + The Demonstration (MAYWORKS Events!!!)
4. *JOB Posting*: Student Christian Movement: Job Posting
5. *ONGOING*: Fight the Natural Gas Hikes in Ontario
6. *Call for Submissions: *Misogyny Island- A feminist confrontation
against rape culture, gendered violence and heterosexism
7. *April 30: *Confront Barrick Gold

****************

*1. THIS SATURDAY: **Social Justice Discotech: Hands-On, DIY, Skills-Share
Fundraiser!*

*Time & Location*
Saturday, April 26, 9am-6:30pm
Bento Miso, 862 Richmond St. W., Unit 100, Toronto

*On facebook: *https://www.facebook.com/events/1432251527016446/

*Summary*
 Discover how to use design and technology to map out and build more just
and sustainable visions of the future!

*Description*
*Drawing Infinitely Scalable Images
*Screen-printing: Design your own poster
*Stenciling
*Stop-Motion Animation
*Paper marbling
*Book-binding
*Comics! By Ad Astra Comix
*Using torrents
*Button-making

*Tickets/ Registration:*
$15 regular, $25 sponsor
You can also pwyc at the door.

*Please REGISTER HERE:*
https://bentomiso.com/events/social-justice-discotech-2

*SCHEDULE:*

*10:30-12pm *
Opening panel/interactive discussion: "Why is creativity important to
social movements? How do you use this as an organizing principle?” with
virtual appearances by Diana Nucera (Allied Media Projects, Detroit),
Jeanette Lee (Allied Media Projects, Detroit), Nina Bianchi (The Work
Dept., Detroit), and Wesley Taylor (Complex Movements, Detroit). Moderated
by Una Lee

*12-12:30pm*
Short Break + brief set-up/prep time

*12:30pm - 5:30pm*
Creation/DIY/Learning Stations, on rotation ((Scheduled times can be seen
here: http://bit.ly/1ih2QG6)

*5:30pm-6:30pm *
Display work, wrap up talk/discussion and thank yous!

*****
Read about Bento Miso’s diversity and inclusiveness policy (
https://bentomiso.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201628406-Diversity-and-Inclusiveness-Statement)
and the accessibility of the space (
https://bentomiso.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201818783-Accessibility).
Please email veegs42 at gmail.com to request ASL interpretation (We will do
our best to make this happen) or any other accessibility requirements.
Written documentation/resources will be made available as much as possible.
******

****************

*2. **Honouring our Communities: The 9th Annual May Day of Action + Bus
from Jane Finch Info*


On May 1st, International Workers Day, we will march to reclaim May Day for
just people's struggles and to Honour Our Communities. We are unified in
our fight against poverty and capitalism. We oppose attacks on rights and
income of workers, irrespective of status. We demand an end to immigration
detention because no one is illegal. We will continue our support for
Indigenous peoples' movements for self-determination. We oppose
colonialism. We are in solidarity with struggles against Canadian
imperialism. We insist on an end to environmental destruction. We resist
patriarchy, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia both in our
day-to-day work and as larger systems of oppression. Join Us!

*Thursday May 1st*
*5:30 PM*
*Allan Gardens, Corner of Dundas & Sherbourne*
*On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/451818364949535/
<https://www.facebook.com/events/451818364949535/>*

--

*Join JFAAP Bus to Downtown on May 1st*
*Jane Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP) joins our community allies
across Toronto to commemorate International Workers’ Day. *

On May 1st, International Workers Day, we will march to reclaim May Day for
just people's struggles and to Honour Our Communities and to demand
justice, dignity, and status for all!

There is a free school bus leaving from the Jane-Finch community to down
town join May Cay of Action. Please contact JFAAP to register for the bus.
The bus will leave for down town at 4:30 PM sharp and will be back at 8:00
p.m.  Free meal and refreshments will be provided.

Date: Thursday, May 1st

*Pick-up locations: *
1. 35 Shorham Drive at *4:15 pm *
2. Yorkgate Mall (No Frills Parking Lot) *4:30 pm*

----------

*Take a moment and imagine with us.*

Worlds. Without rich or poor. Where land and freedom are sacred. Where wars
are mere nightmares. Where home is not just an endless longing. Where
migration is both celebrated and unnecessary. Worlds with bread and roses.
Where we honour those that came before us and together write new futures.
Where we are whole and not just what is written on our bodies. Worlds where
we belong to the land, the four legged and the winged ones, not them to us.
Worlds that are attuned to the earth's polyphonic harmonies.


On May Day, let's breathe together, and see the whole.

Apart, many times we have faltered, many times we have lost sight. We are
parts of the greater puzzle, each of us responsible to all our relations.
These worlds are not just hopes; the must be plans. Our plans. Our
struggles are not just to end immigration detentions or to ensure services
and status for all. For each one freed, each one fed, each one dignified is
a new flame in the fires we are stoking. Our songs and stories, our words
and pictures together are the blueprint for what will come after. Each
pipeline blocked, each mining company bankrupted, each shelter reclaimed
lays the foundations for these worlds. Every child taught, every elder
honored, each dead remembered, every living being fought for, sprouts new
seeds, deeper roots.

This May Day let us conspire; let us breathe; let us march; let us imagine
and then birth; let us be stronger, together.

--

Coordinated by a coalition of community groups including No One Is Illegal
- Toronto, May 1st Movement and Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. To
endorse the event, fill out this form http://bit.ly/1mtIrSZ

JOIN MAY DAY!

- Organize a contingent: bring a group of people from your class,
organization, neighbourhood, or union local to this demonstration, bring
your demands, banners, flags and signs.

- Help fund a bus, food, transit tokens, ASL, and materials for the day. If
you or your organization or union local can make donations of money or
in-kind, please help us make this day as participatory and accessible as
possible. Cheques can be made to No One Is Illegal and mailed to 260 Queen
Street West, PO Box 60006, Toronto, ON M5V 1Z8. Please put May Day in the
memo line and email nooneisillegal at riseup.net to let us know.

- Get the word out. Call, text, and email your friends. Share the facebook
events, or better yet, start your own! Make sure to tag everything,
including pictures and videos after, with the hashtag #May1TO.



****************

*3. **The Struggle For Economic Justice: May Day Celebration and Panel
Discussion*

Monday May 5, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, Free
York Woods Library, 1785 Finch Avenue West
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/773351199342360/

A community event in honour of International Workers’ Day featuring a
series of performance by Nomanzland and a photography exhibit by Errol
Young. These performances will be followed by a panel discussion on the
campaign for the $14 minimum wage, the campaign to raise Ontario Works (OW)
and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rates, and issues of poverty
at large (such as cuts to social programs). Panelists will speak on how
these issues have been affecting communities of racialized immigrants and
working people and various ways in which we can work collectively for a
just society. Speakers include residents and activists from the Jane-Finch
community (Leticia Ama Boahen and Suzanne Narain) and Lawrence Heights
community (Kaydeen Bankasingh) and organizers from Workers’ Action Centre
(Sonia Singh and Acsana Fernando).

Food, TTC tokens and childcare will be provided.

Co-presented by Jane Finch Action Against Poverty and West-Side Arts Hub

Co-sponsored by Workers’ Action Centre and Ontario Coalition Against
Poverty.

This event is part of the 29th annual Mayworks Festival of Working People
and the Arts, taking place from May 1 - 15, 2014 at various GTA locations.
For more details on this year's program, artists, and festival partners,
please visit http://mayworks.ca/.


*The Demonstration*

*Opening Reception:* Wednesday May 7, 7 pm - 9 pm, Free
*Exhibit Runs from:* May 1 - June 8, Free
*Gallery Hours: *Thursday - Saturday, 1 pm - 7 pm
Whippersnapper Gallery, 594b Dundas Street West
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/224403721087882/

Historian Eric Hobsbawm writes that, “Next to sex, the activity combining
bodily experience and intense emotion to the highest degree is the
participation in a mass demonstration”. Coco Guzman’s immersive
installation The Demonstration explores the interpersonal dynamics of the
crowd and the intense emotional narratives generated when a large group of
people comes together for a common purpose. The audience is invited to
wander within the scene of this grotesque demonstration/parade composed by
human-size papier-mâché figures and on-site drawings and to reflect on the
place that protest/celebration and gathering takes in our neoliberal
societies.

Co-presented by Whippersnapper Gallery.
Co-sponsored by The Public, Opirg York, CUPE 1281.

This event is part of the 29th annual Mayworks Festival of Working People
and the Arts, taking place from May 1 - 15, 2014 at various GTA locations.
For more details on this year's program, artists, and festival partners,
please visit http://mayworks.ca/.


****************

* 4. **Student Christian Movement: Job Posting*

Student Christian Movement is looking to fill a one-year leave contract for
the position of General Secretary. We encourage applicants from a diversity
of backgrounds and especially from people of colour, women and the LGBTQ
community. Application Deadline May 1st.

http://www.scmcanada.org/index.php/news-link/item/122-hiring-for-general-secretary-1-year-leave-contract


****************

* 5. **Fight the Natural Gas Hikes in Ontario*

Natural Gas Prices Hiked by 40%
The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) approved a 40% increase in the price of
natural gas, starting April 1, 2014. The average gas bill in Ontario will
go up by $40/month!

Gas Companies - Profit and Pollution

Companies that supply natural gas in Ontario - Enbridge and Union Gas -
asked for this hike because the cold winter forced them to tap into their
reserves, which increased their costs. Losing profits is a risk of doing
business, unless you’re a gas company with a monopoly and an energy board
that is willing to let you massively raise your prices.

Thanks to the OEB decision, we will now be paying even more money to one
of the biggest polluters on the planet. Enbridge is a multi-billion dollar
oil company that is deeply involved in the Tar Sands and dangerous
pipelines like Line 9 and the Northern Gateway.

Who is affected?

Nearly everyone in Ontario will be affected - homeowners and tenants. Most
hot water heaters and many furnaces use natural gas.  Many tenants pay
their own utilities - they will face the same hike as homeowners. Tenants
who don’t pay utilities will see their rent go up as landlords look to
them to offset this hike.

We all want to be more energy efficient and use less natural gas. Tenants
don’t have the option of making their homes more energy efficient. Many
homeowners cannot afford these often expensive renovations and there are
no government programs that come close to covering the costs. So most of
us are stuck using expensive, environmentally damaging natural gas to heat
our homes.

Wages Down, Costs Up

Most people in Ontario have not seen their wages keep pace with inflation.
This means that costs go up, but our wages do not.

The unemployment and underemployment rates in this province are at
frightening levels. Minimum wage is below the poverty line and social
assistance rates are so low that people can’t afford both food and
shelter. Personal debt is at record levels because people do not earn
enough and are forced to borrow to make ends meet.

When we demand raises in wages, social assistance rates and the minimum
wage, we’re always told that there is no money for the raises we need. But
when big oil companies ask for a raise, their wish is immediately granted.

What can I do?

Sign the petition:
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/ontario-energy-board-reverse-the-40-hike-in-natural-gas-rates-in-ontario

Contact the Energy Minister and your MPP and demand that they take action.
Here is a Sample Email
http://badgasontario.blogspot.ca/2014/04/mppemail.html


Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli: bchiarelli.mpp.co at liberal.ola.org
Find your MPP's email here
(http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/members_current.do?locale=en).
If you don't know your riding, visit Elections Ontario to find out
(http://fyed.elections.on.ca/fyed/en/form_page_en.jsp).

Complain to the OEB by filling out a complaint form on their website
(
http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/oeb/Consumers/Contact%20Consumer%20Relations/Online%20Enquiry%20Form
).
Here is a Sample Complaint:
http://badgasontario.blogspot.ca/2014/04/sample-oeb-complaint.html


Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/badgasON!
Follow us on Twitter @badgasON! Help spread the word!
Website: http://badgasontario.blogspot.ca/


****************

*6. **Call for Submissions: **Misogyny Island- **A feminist confrontation
against rape culture, gendered violence and heterosexism*

Recently there has been a spike in "Men's Rights/Issues" groups and
so-called Men's Rights Activism (MRA) in Canada and the United States. In
the Kingston, Ontario context, we have witnessed rape culture activities
that undermine decades of feminist organizing such as the destruction of
the Blue Lights (designed as a preventive measure against assault) and most
recently, the assault of a female student and the harassment of a
philosophy professor who both spoke out against MRA events on campus in
March 2014. These are some seriously disturbing trends. Playing on the
insight of another feminist: we can't believe we still have to protest this
shit.

While we might be exasperated, we won't be silenced. We are seeking
submissions from folks across the gender spectrum and across our community
who would like to share their rage against the patriarchy in written
(academic and non) and artistic form. This feminist zine hopes to create a
forum to challenge the misogyny we witness in our classrooms, campuses,
residences, on the streets and in our larger communities, and to subvert
the hatred and violence of MRAs. We are accepting submissions from
students, professors, activists, community members and university staff.

Submissions are due Friday May 23rd 2014. Please send your submission
tomifeministzine at gmail.com. We look forward to building a supportive space
to challenge the patriarchy in an intersectional way that recognizes that
patriarchy affects us all in different ways depending on our social
location, race, sexuality, ability, gender identit(ies) and lived
experiences. Homophobic, heterosexist, racist, transphobic, ableist
language will not be accepted.

*‘Misogyny Island’ is a term that we've unfortunately come across during
our tenure at Queen's. It is a term used in jest by progressive people
seeking to "ironically" express nostalgia for the days when one could be
openly and blatantly sexist, and to invite others to join in on the 'fun'.
Misogyny Island is shorthand for: that place where people (not just
Hipsters, but yes, Hipsters) go to be "ironically" sexist, racist, ableist
and homophobic, at a safe distance from the pesky feminists who take issue
with normalizing hierarchies and binaries to reproduce colonial relations
of domination because, after all, they are educated and they don't mean it,
and you'd find it funny too if you didn't take yourself so seriously. We,
the pesky feminists, recognize that these subtle forms of heterosexism
justify and are grounded in wider systemic oppression such as hegemonic
masculinities, white supremacy and violence. We chose it as the title of
our publication because we feel it is symbolic of the subtle and insidious
ways that gendered violence continues to be shrugged away, and telling of
that nebulous concept which is gaining social prevalence: rape culture.


****************

*7. **April 30: Confront Barrick Gold*

*WHERE*: Metro Convention Centre, 255 Front St, Toronto
*WHEN*: April 30, 2014 @ 11am

Barrick destroys communities around the world in their pathological quest
for a metal that we no longer need to mine. Join us as we stand in
solidarity with communities directly impacted by this gold mining giant!

This annual general meeting is taking place while:

• Barrick is facing a court case in the British High Court seeking damages
for the death and injury of local villagers in Tanzania.
• Communities in Papua New Guinea are making urgent calls for resettlement
away from the mine site and community members are compensation for killings
and sexual assault.
• Communities in the Dominican Republic are also seeking urgent relocation
away from the contaminated mine site, and to be compensated for their
economic losses from dead cattle and contaminated produce.
• Indigenous Diaguita communities in Chile are fighting to stop the Pascua
Lama project, which does not have their consent and has been poisoning
their scarce water resources.
• Communities on Marinduque Island in the Philippines are seeking damages
from a mine tailings disaster, considered the worst mining disaster in the
Philippines.

***Musical Performances by Amai Kuda, Test Their Logik, and more! ***

Please come out and support the communities negatively affected by Barrick.
Through grassroots solidarity, we can ensure that their perspectives and
needs are heard loud and clear in Toronto!


-- 

-OPIRG York
--
www.opirgyork.ca
416-736-5724
opirg at yorku.ca



*There are many ways to get involved at OPIRG. Apply to be a working
group: **http://opirgyork.ca/working-groups
<http://opirgyork.ca/working-groups>*
Contact victoria at opirgyork.ca for further information.

*We also have two collectives: *PrOPIRGanda Radio and the Radical Reading
Room. You can contact us about ways to get involved in these collectives:
opirgyork at gmail.com.

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