KAMLOOPS – Organizers of a two-day symposium on gender issues to be heldat TRU’s Williams Lake campus next month are looking for submissions.
Conference organizers welcome presentations on innovations that supportwomen and men with a range of gender issues. The “Around the Blend:Exploring Gender Diversity in Health & Human Services” symposium is intended to be cross-cultural, multidisciplinary and related to bestpractices in the helping professions, with the goal of helping participants to move beyond generalized concepts of gender and sexual orientation, and to recognize and celebrate these dimensions of diversity.
The symposium is for professionals, teachers, counsellors, TRU facultyand staff working in the helping professions, students in Social Work,Nursing, Education and Social Sciences as well as anyone from the general public interested in gender diversity issues, explained symposium co-organizer Jay Goddard.
Potential presenters are asked to provide information that fits one ofthe diversity of themes on the diversity of gender issues, including cross-cultural concepts of gender and sexuality; women’s or men’s addiction issues; a gendered focus on other social issues; violence in relationships; homophobia; general information on gender and/or orientation issues; non-traditional occupational roles (i.e. malecaregivers, women in trades); gender socialization in youth; First Nations communities and gender issues; the use of the arts in exploring gender-related social issues and problems; gender issues and leadership; women’s and men’s health and wellness, and; gender issues in smaller communities.
The conference organizers encourage broadly appealing presentations that are interactive and experiential, willing to explore controversial issues, use expressive mediums (music, visual art, theatre etc), and are gay, bisexual, lesbian, and trans-gendered-friendly and supportive.
Students, faculty members and community agencies who don’t want topresent a paper but still want to be involved are invited to present papers, program innovations or information on community supports and services in a poster session format on TRU-WL’s Student Street Thursday afternoon.
Also part of the event will be an optional evening dinner theatre presentation, “Looking for Normal” by Jane Anderson, performed by theWilliam Lake Studio Theatre Society.
The symposium will run May 17 and 18 at TRU’s Williams Lake campus, located at 1250 Western Avenue.
For more information, please contact:
Jay Goddard at 250-392-8164 or by email.
Elizabeth Rennie at 250-392-8031 or email.
Beth Bedard at 250- 392-8166 or email.
