Gabriela Ontario launched on Feb. 25

Gabriela Ontario launched on Feb. 25

TORONTO–On February 25, 2012, GABRIELA Ontario will mark its founding General Assembly under the theme “Forging the Unity and Power of Women to Create Better Social, Economic and Political Conditions”. The General Assembly will be held from 1-5pm at the Wellesley Community Centre at 495 Sherbourne Street, Toronto.

GABRIELA Ontario is a mass organization that seeks to extend the Filipino women’s national democratic mass movement to Canada. Under its banner, we will address and campaign on issues that have great impact on Filipino women in Ontario, and hold ourselves committed to upholding women’s rights and welfare, and dedicated to asserting and championing the momentous, though often simplified and devalued, role of women in nation-building and social transformation.

Under the aegis of GABRIELA Philippines, our name stands for General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership and Action. The organization’s name and its very spirit draw inspiration from one of our many Philippine heroines, Gabriela Silang, who was one of the respected generals in the more than three centuries of resistance and uprisings against the Spanish colonizers. Without doubt, Gabriela has become a lasting symbol for justice and action in the minds of Filipino women.

GABRIELA Ontario believes that any and all Filipino women in Canada – despite their status as migrant, immigrant, descendant, citizen, or person of mixed heritage – can bepart of the organization. Over the last three years, we have been advocating forthe rights and welfare of the women in our community, conducting awareness-raising campaigns on the oppression and struggles of Filipino women in the Philippines as well as for those of migrants/immigrants in Canada. We also have been addressing issues of oppression and have been improving women’s conditions through education and training programs aimed at skills building and self-empowerment. We are part of the Migrante-Canada network, the Toronto-based Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body and the recently launched International Women’s Alliance. On February 25, we will share with you the history of GABRIELA Ontario’s formation in the last three years and publicly discuss our constitution, by-laws and program of action. We will also elect our officers.  We envisions the launch as one that will definitively formalize and solidify our unity as women in the community as we continue to move forward in our struggle in the social, economic and political sphere. Through the well-tested principles of GABRIELA – educating, organizing and mobilizing our members, families and friends – we will build firm foundations for better conditions among our women, alongside the rest of the Filipino people here in Canada and in the Philippines.

Women, our place is in the best of struggles!

(PRESS RELEASE)