Tag: Human rights

Why IWD?

International Women’s Day is March 8. Join us as we celebrate all month long, learning more about the ongoing struggle for women’s rights around the world.

IWD has been celebrated in various forms for well over a century. According to internationalwomensday.com, IWD “is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for advancing gender equality.” While many gains have been made in some parts of the world since the early 20th Century, the struggle is far from over.

source: canada.ca; United Nations

Canadian law protects women’s rights better than in most parts of the world, yet even here the work is not done. The Government of Canada says that IWD is “a time to celebrate the progress made in advancing women’s rights and highlight the ongoing efforts needed to ensure their full participation in all aspects of society.”

source: unwomen.org

The United Nations IWD “calls for action to dismantle all barriers to equal justice: discriminatory laws, weak legal protections, and harmful practices and social norms that erode the rights of women and girls.

source: unwomen.org

Celebrate International Women’s Day on March, learn more all month long in your School Library, and remember that the struggle for equality will continue every day of the year.

Books for IWD

International Women’s Day is March 8. Read more about the many issues surrounding the human rights of women in Canada and around the world, both historically and in the present, including feminism, representation, healthcare, education, economic opportunities, suffrage, sexual violence, gender roles and much more.

School Libraries and Intellectual Freedom

School Libraries should be bastions of intellectual freedom. Tragically, the School Library has always been a battleground in the struggles between those that would protect our rights and freedoms and those that would impose their beliefs on others.

This has become all too evident in the U.S. in recent years, and sadly we in Canada are not immune. Provincial Ministries of Education, School Boards, and individual schools and school libraries have been sucked into the current climate of extreme political polarization. Attacks on the freedom to read are on the rise, and include recent decisions made by the government of Alberta. The following are quotes from the response of Canadian School Libraries:

“Individual parents have the right to decide on their child’s reading, but they do not have the right to impose it on everyone.

The selection and availability of school library and learning resource materials should be made by trained professionals, not politicians and bureaucrats.

Not every book in a school library is meant for every student. Schools need to have a wide range of age and developmentally appropriate resources that cover the needs of the student population.

School library collections, with a richness and diversity that allows students to see themselves and experience lives other than their own, are developed within the lens of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the rights and freedoms it affords to all Canadians, including children.”


Find out more about Canadian School Libraries