This year in Saskatchewan, Women’s History Month aims to celebrate important women in the area of education. To that end, the provincial Status of Women office has released the stories of different women in the province who have contributed to education.
“It gives us an opportunity to talk about the roles that women have played through Canada’s history,” said Pat Faulconbridge with the Status of Women office.
The two important dates during the month of October are International Day of the Girl on Oct. 11, which recognizes “girls and young women as powerful voices of change in their families, communities and nations” according to a news release.
Oct. 18 is Persons Day, which recognizes when women were recognized as persons under the law in Canada.
To decide who to profile, the Status of Women office looked at which women in education were bringing a different perspective to their roles.
“In our search, we discovered that there were some women in the province that were teaching in a different way and engaging with students on issues and topics that need to be talked about and need to be explored,” Faulconbridge said.
They looked for women from different standpoints, including women accessing education and women who accessed different levels of education. The list of women includes several First Nations women, which Faulconbridge said was intentional.
“When we look at education in the province, we look at different types of information that the province needs to be learning, and our First Nations and Metis history is important and we wanted to look at the role that the women educators were bringing to the educational field,” she said.
One of the women profiled was Idle No More co-founder, Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum.
To promote the month, the office has posted the profiles of female educators online and partnered with Girl Guides Saskatchewan to host some events, as well as holding events over the province to promote Persons Day.
“(The purpose) is to recognize that women are now telling their stories, that in history the stories about women were written by men and now women are telling their own story,” she said. “(We’re) reminding Saskatchewan citizens that this is an important month. It was an important milestone for women to be recognized as persons and we wanted to celebrate them.”
