Honouring Women Who Rock
Six local women making an impact on the community are being honoured at the third annual “Women Who Rock” awards luncheon at Michelangelo Banquet Centre on Oct. 26.
The event will celebrate Women’s History Month — one of the “most undercelebrated commemorations,” said Evelyn Myrie, founder of event organizer EMpower Strategy Group.
“Women’s History Month was established in 1992, but if you were to go down ... the street and ask people, ‘Do you know there’s a Women’s History Month in Canada in October?’ Ninety per cent would say no,” she said. “This is part of this journey to create a robust celebration.”
Powergroup Communications’ Laura Babcock is host of the event, which will feature a “Fempreneurs’ Marketplace” and guest speaker Marie Clarke Walker, who is secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congress. In 2002, Walker was the first racialized woman and youngest person ever to be elected executive vice-president of the CLC.
This year’s Women Who Rock include:
Karen Bird
“It’s a wonderful surprise and a real honour. (It’s) nice to ... get the word out there that there are people that are working hard on putting together empirical evidence to show that women are still behind, women are still not in leadership positions, and we need to do something about it.”
Bird is the first female political science chair at McMaster University. Her research focuses on ethnic and gender diversity, intersectionality, and the political representation of women, Indigenous groups, and immigrant-origin and ethnic minorities in the world’s parliaments.
Deborah Barfknecht
“I was very honoured and it’s a really nice award because it comes from your peers and EMpower Strategy, of course, is run by Evelyn Myrie, and she’s a real force in the community too, so it’s really nice to be associated with her event because she works so hard, too ... People don’t always realize that lawyers, not just myself, a lot of lawyers, do a lot of pro bono work in the community ... This is a nice sort of nod to that part of being a lawyer as well.”
Barfknecht is a Hamilton lawyer, who has championed women’s rights in her field and beyond. She has provided pro bono legal advice to women in local shelters for decades.
Laura Cattari
“With the political shifts that have occurred this year — especially doing anti-poverty work, and human rights around economic, cultural and social rights — it becomes a different atmosphere ... To have my community of women acknowledge what I’m doing, it’s lovely.”
Cattari is a longtime anti-poverty activist and campaigner who works to affect public policy change that empowers those living in poverty. She has taken the campaign to end poverty to national and international bodies, including the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Dr. Amy Montour
“I was absolutely surprised. I’m humbled to be included in the group that has been chosen. My mentor, Pat Mandy, is a previous recipient, so I feel almost like I’m undeserving when I’m following in her shoes.”
Montour is a physician with a story of resilience. She is a palliative-care hospitalist with the Brant Community Healthcare System, a member of the outreach team with Stedman Community Hospice, the regional Aboriginal clinical lead in the Hamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brant region and the regional palliative-care multidisciplinary co-lead for the regional network and Cancer Care Ontario.
Dora Anie
“The name ‘rock’ alone is a big
one. If you’re a woman and you rock, then you know you’re going places ... It’s very humbling for people to actually nominate you ... for something ... you have passion to do and believe in.”
Anie is passionate about education. In 2004, she founded the Ghana School of Dreams — a Canadian-based charitable organization dedicated toward renovating and building schools in Ghana in partnership with the Ghanaian government.
Nora Melara-Lopez
“For me, I was reading a little bit about the five other women, and just to be put alongside them, it’s an honour. I don’t think people who do the kind of volunteer work and the work that we do in the community do it for awards — we do it because we love what we do.”
Melara-Lopez is a social worker who has been an advocate for immigrants and newcomers. She founded the Jose Eduardo López Memorial Scholarship in memory of her husband, who was tortured and murdered in the name of human rights and education in Honduras. She and her family have been awarding scholarships to post-secondary Latino students since 2009.