2025 BULLETIN BOARD:
- ◉ IWD Vancouver March: Saturday, March 8th, 2025 from 1:00 - 4:00 pm at
- ◉ Speaker's list 2025 announced! See IG or 2025 event page
- ◉ Check out our new Instagram @iwdmarchvan
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What is IWD Vancouver? Mission Statement: International Women's Day March Vancouver works to celebrate, amplify, and fight alongside the diversity of women in our community to achieve equity and create awareness of issues self-identifying women in Vancouver face. Vision: We aim to host the international women's day march every year in March as well as promote events hosted by grassroots organizations around Vancouver. We will ensure everything we do creates a safe space for women and highlight the intersectional issues we face. Goals: We will call on our allies to recognize our struggles and fight alongside us. We will promote other events from our communities that aim to achieve equity. We will create a space for volunteers that is safe and inclusive. We will create a platform where we can educate and inform those in our community of the history, battles and victories of the women's equity movement. |
We have the human right to protest here and with so many injustices worldwide, isn't it our duty to do what others aren't able to do - what others have been imprisoned for?" 
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What Are Our Values?
Intersectional Feminism: Intersectionality is a term coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the ways that experiences of marginalization and oppression can interact and compound. The Vancouver International Women’s Day March places intersectional feminism and diversity of experiences at the heart of our values. Intersectional feminism refers to the many ways that multiple marginalized identities and experiences can overlap— or intersect— when shaping someone’s unique experience within oppressive systems. As Lila Abu-Lughod states, “every view is a view from somewhere and every act of speaking a speaking from somewhere.” Intersectionality allows us to consider the how we build the identities and experiences that shape our diverse perspectives.
Solidarity: At Vancouver’s International Women’s Day March, we march in solidarity with women, gender-diverse individuals, and marginalized communities all over the world: though we all have different experiences, we seek collective liberation. The personal is political, and the political is personal. We stand with women and their global struggles against all forms of oppression. Solidarity is one of the key principles of the Vancouver International Women’s Day March. We organise, stand, and march in solidarity with women and marginalized groups around the world, and with our neighbours in our community. There is no freedom for one without liberation for all.
Coalitional Politics: Feminist scholar Mariana Ortega describes this term, which highlights relationality, intersectionality, and recognizing others’ potential for resistance: “[Coalitional politics] can lead to becoming-with that involves not just understanding others but being transformed by them and with them.” (2016, p.155) Coalitional politics are a way that we can incorporate the perspectives that come from people’s individual ‘horizons’ of experience. By honouring intersectionality, and prioritising listening and open-mindedness, we can create a cooperative approach that grows with us and our community.
Community-led: The Vancouver International Women’s Day March is a local, grassroots coalition organised on the Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nations. We seek to respond to and reflect the needs of Vancouver in our mission to advocate for the diverse global experiences of women and marginalized communities. We are proud to be a community-led organization, from our mission to our team and partners. We strive to reflect the needs of our community in planning this gathering and focusing its mission: we are made up of a diverse group of organizers, volunteers, community partners, and community members who join us to march. We uphold the principles of diversity, inclusion, equity, anti-colonialism, intersectionality, and self-determination, and celebrate the myriad of perspectives and experiences we see reflected in Vancouver.
Bravery: We stand for bravery and courage in the face of oppression, opposition, and injustice, and fearless celebration of our local and global successes. We advocate for a world where women can be strong and outspoken in our values: we strive to create the brave spaces necessary to express ourselves and champion what we believe in.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that the Vancouver International Women’s Day committee is located on the Unceded Coast Salish Territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. Unceded means that this land was never surrendered, relinquished, or handed over in any way. Today, most of BC remains unceded sovereign Native lands, over which neither the Canadian or BC government have the legal or moral authority to govern. We recognize that these communities are the original caretakers and stewards over the lands and waters that we occupy.
The Vancouver IWD committee members are first, second, and third-generation settlers — as well as long-term settlers — of this land. Our ancestry includes Chinese, Greek, German, Danish, Turkish, English, and Norwegian. We are now privileged and honoured to call these unceded lands home. Some of our members were born on these lands, and others have settled here as recently as 2021.
This committee is dedicated to supporting the different strategies that Indigenous peoples are using to protect their land and their communities, and we commit to dedicating time and resources to working in solidarity. Specifically, our committee recognizes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This affirms the “fundamental importance of the right to self-determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” We feel it is also important to note the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action. These 94 Calls to Action were made to “redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation.” In acknowledging UNDRIP and the Calls to Action, we are committing to implementing these articles into our organization’s policy, into strategic planning, and mission within Vancouver.
We would further like to acknowledge the unique challenges that Indigenous women in British Columbia face. This includes the ongoing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG2S+) Final Report and Calls for Justice. Indigenous women in Canada face increased violence as a result of ongoing underlying social, economic, cultural, institutional, and historical causes.
This committee is dedicated to uplifting the voices of Indigenous women and two-spirit folks in British Columbia. We are privileged to settle on these lands and aim to use our time here to actively create space and uplift Indigenous communities. We encourage all settlers of this land to continue the ongoing process of education on Indigenous history and contemporary challenges and championing the 94 Calls to Action.
Community Partners:
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