Celebrate International Women’s Day with us on Wednesday, March 8th from 1 PM to 4 PM at Barclay Manor! We have an incredible line-up of speakers, an amazing jazz performance, and a screening of the CBC documentary, “Women of Bollywood”.
This event is all about celebrating influential and strong women in our community. All are welcome!
Our Speakers
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Teri Smith, West End Business Improvement Association, Executive Director.
Teri Smith has been a pillar in the downtown and West End community for much of her career. In her role as the West End BIA Executive Director, she and her team have been working to support local businesses and bring new experiences to the community. Learn about her journey and how she is shaping the West End today.
Grace Balbutin, Collective Member, Asian Women for Equality
Grace Balbutin is a first-generation Asian immigrant. Her feminist organizing advocacy for women’s equality rights, in intersection with racism, is shaped by 25 years of work experience in Canada among which are as a director in a seniors abuse and information line, a legal advocate for temporary foreign workers, and immigrant women, and front-line work in a rape crisis line and transition house for women escaping male violence. She has a BA in Behavioural Sciences and an MA in sociology study in the Philippines.
Grace is a volunteer collective member of the Asian Women for Equality Society. She coordinates their public education program on Guaranteed Livable Income for older adults, educational initiatives for racialized women, and community outreach programs supporting and empowering criminalized women.
Asian Women for Equality website: www.asianwomenequality.org
Lili Vieira De Carvalho, Executive Director, Vancouver Latin American Cultural Center
Capping off over three decades of arts-management positions, Lili Vieira de Carvalho is the Executive Director of the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre (www.vlacc.ca), a nonprofit organization with the mission of establishing a centre in Vancouver to share a deeper understanding of Latin American arts and cultures.
Born in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, and raised in and near Rio de Janeiro, Lili was a cultural producer and arts manager, representing prominent artists, organizing touring exhibitions, and partnering with galleries and museums throughout South America’s largest country. At the start of this millennium, she was the Executive Director at the Casa de Petrópolis Instituto de Cultura, an arts centre focused on contemporary art exhibitions on a 19th-century heritage mansion near Rio.
Lili immigrated to Canada in 2008 and volunteered extensively at film festivals and as a mentor to young arts professionals. She is the spokesperson of the Consulate General of Brazil in Vancouver’s Citizen’s Council. In November of 2021, Lili was honoured to receive the Medal of the Order of Rio Branco, bestowed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil to honour citizens and foreigners who have served Brazil with distinction “in international diplomacy through commendable actions.” She is also a Britannia Community Centre’s Reconciliation in Action Committee member.
From 2008 to 2011, Lili worked at Vancouver’s famous Diane Farris Gallery. As Associate Director there, among many other shows, she curated “Twitter: Art + Social Media,” the first exhibition of its kind in Canada.
Featuring
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A performance by the Company B Jazz Band
The members of Company B Jazz Band met in the Jazz Studies program at Capilano University, honing their skills by studying modern jazz. Interested in learning more about what came before, the friends happened upon recordings of the Andrews Sisters and the Boswell Sisters. It was love at first listen, and their mission became to recreate the sound and spirit of this wonderful era of swinging jazz while adding their own musical personalities to the mix.
A screening of “Women beyond Bollywood”
India’s cinema industry is the largest in the world, and Bollywood is its flagship: stars, music, and drama, not to mention rampant sexism, are its defining features. Today, a new generation of filmmakers is finally showing women as more than eye candy or appendages to larger-than-life male heroes. Montreal filmmaker Rahila Bootwala left India as a young woman, wanting to work in film but feeling disconnected from an industry dominated by men and beholden to their fantasies. In this empowering documentary, she goes back to India to meet with the women who are reshaping the industry.
