🍉 VanGran4Pal Community Newsletter
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**Neighbours and Friends, **
Our newsletter comes to you at a critical time for Gaza, for Palestine, and for all people of conscience who are standing up against this genocide. Our community members have been engaged in protests and advocacy, while students across BC and Canada are bringing the anti-war movement to their universities. This week’s newsletter features updates on the incredible work our community members have been doing through direct action, speaking truth to power, and creating art. As we work hard to educate our communities and build solidarity in our neighbourhoods, we hold the people of Gaza in our hearts.
Advocacy Updates
Image credit: Kelli Rothwell Photography
On April 16th, the BC NDP hosted a leaders reception and fundraiser dinner at Science World for BC Premier David Eby. The dinner’s attendees were met by protestors outside the venue with loud and defiant chants that called out Eby’s silence on the genocide in Gaza. The peaceful protest went on for four hours with slogans such as, “your human rights are built on lies, you’re raising funds while Gaza dies” which echoed across False Creek all the way to BC Place.
In addition, the BC Teachers Federation passed a historic motion to include education about the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing and mass dispossession of Palestinians from their lands in 1948) and the military occupation of Palestine in the BC curriculum. Eby’s government is making Holocaust education mandatory in Grade 10 on the basis that education can stop hate. But Eby has so far taken no action to address the hatred and dehumanization faced by Palestinians, which is enabling another genocide to happen.
VanGran4Pal members together at the BC Provincial Legislature.
On April 29th, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) organized an advocacy day at the Provincial Legislature. Three of our own VanGran4Pal members attended the event representing our community! During the day they met with a number of government officials including the leader of the Green Party, the Minister of Education, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and David Eby. The primary ask by the NCCM was for BC to include Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian racism in the education system from K-12. VanGran4Pal members spoke about their experiences facing Anti-Palestinian racism, the discrimination facing supporters of Palestine, and longstanding Islamophobia. They reminded MLA’s that anti-discrimination education must be inclusive and robust to build a better future for marginalized communities.
Spotlight on Student Protests
In BC
Students at the University of British Columbia, University of Victoria, and Vancouver Island University have begun encampments in solidarity with Gaza this week. The students are demanding that their universities divest from organizations with ties to Israel’s occupation and the genocide in Gaza, where every university has been destroyed by Israeli bombardment. The students add to a movement of campus protests around the world, first started at Columbia University in New York.
Follow the Students here:
UBC - @peoplesuniversityubc
Vancouver Island University - @pse_viu
UVic - @peoplesparkuvic
Support the Students:
Requests for: First aid supplies, tents, canopy tents, sleeping bags/pads, tarps, emergency blankets, warm clothes, pillows, heat packs, and more (see social media for updates).
Across Turtle Island
We share the words of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people of the Five Nations Longhouse Confederacy at Kahnawà:ke who, in an April 28th letter, gave students at McGill and across Turtle Island full rights to occupy lands to demand divestment, saying:
“We are happy to see students within universities and colleges are occupying their campuses in solidarity with the massacred Palestinian children, women, and men, to force their campus administration to divest from israel’s genocide. Institutions of higher learning must not be invested in or connected to any genocide, war or military action, as they are supposed to engage students in higher levels of thought conducive to human evolution.”
Community Spotlight
Painting titled “Stop the Genocide” by Asma Burney
Contribute to the Newsletter
Do you have something you would like to share with your neighbours? We welcome submissions of all kinds — stories, poems, art, and event info. Simply reply to this email to send in your contribution.
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With gratitude and in solidarity,
Your Neighbours
Van Gran 4 Palestine
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