International Women’s Day 2009

In an effort to recognize and celebrate women in Jasper, International Women’s Day 2009 will be celebrated Wednesday, Mar. 4 with a gala dinner, play and presentations from the community.

With a Women Building Community theme, Ginette Marcoux-Frigon, executive director of the Jasper Adult Learning Council, said the evening is an opportunity for “women to gather and remember the struggles of women from yesterday and the successes and challenges that women have faced and still face today.”

Marcoux-Frigon, who has been organizing the event in Jasper since 2001, said the theme aims “to recognize the women in our community and how they contribute to building communities.”

She suggests the night is a good opportunity to educate women of all ages about International Women’s Day, with a short discussion about the history of the day, but also aims to offer a range of inter-generational approaches to education.

The one act play We’re All Daughters, written by Jasperite Kamia Shepherd and directed by Sonia Deleo, will be performed to celebrate in a different medium. Shepherd will also be reading from her book The Seventh Sister.

According to Deleo, the play is a “symbolic piece” about how women are connected through one “consciousness” and that there is an “understanding that women all have for each other.”

The play is about three women each at different stages of their lives, and aims to demonstrate that “although we all come from different places and have given and taken different things from our lives we all have a main goal in mind and we’re all trying to do the best for our daughters.”

The three women acting in the play are Josee Frigon and Devon Blackstock, who are both in high school, and Debbie Derksen.

Deleo said she hopes the play will “reach every age group and that everyone will understand it and take something from it.”

There will also be a presentation by the Yellowhead Emergency Shelter on “building community” that “will feature women in many different roles... and it will be all women from Jasper,” Marcoux-Frigon said

Although the night is a celebration of women, Marcoux-Frigon said men are more than welcome to attend. 

Tickets for the event are $25 each and less for youths. The reception begins at 6 p.m. on Mar. 4 at the Sawridge Inn and Conference Centre.