April News & Updates

As we announced a few months ago, our social enterprise, WIGG, closed its doors on March 31, 2023 after 12 incredible years of bringing customers some of Canada's leading brands, with a focus on women-led companies.

But it's not going away entirely! Read our blog for some exciting updates.

On March 23, the provincial government released its 2023 budget. We, along with our partners in the YWCA Ontario Coalition, issued our own analysis of it.

One of the two themes of this year’s provincial budget was “Working For You.” However, we remain unclear about who the budget is actually working for – because unfortunately, it is not for women, girls and gender diverse people.

Equal Pay Day is a global event to raise awareness of the gender pay gap. It marks how many months into 2023 the average woman must work to catch up to what the average man earned in 2022.

On average, women experience a 32% pay gap, but the gap widens for women who are racialized (40%), Indigenous (45%), immigrants (55%) and who have disabilities (56%).

This year, amidst a rise in privatization of public services, the theme of Equal Pay Day is Say No To Privatization. Privatization leads to cutbacks in public services, dismantles and undermines vital resources in health care, education, child care and in community and social services, and disproportionately harms women and low income people.

Learn more about Equal Pay Day and get involved in the action! Visit equalpaycoalition.org

Learn more about these opportunities and about this award-winning program that has shown dramatic effects in reducing levels of aggression among school children while raising social and emotional competence and increasing empathy, by visiting our website.

Want to get involved? Contact Roots of Empathy Coordinator, Mary Wright at m.wright@ywcacambridge.ca.

Our TechGyrls March break camp was a huge success! This program was first developed by YWCA Cambridge and is now offered at YWCAs across Canada.

TechGyrls is all about having a safe place to learn, make mistakes and explore! Participants joined in person and online for five fun-filled days about all things STEM. The week included:

• The group creation of safe spaces through group guidelines and a conversation around mistakes, learning together and the importance of trial and error in STEM projects
• Team building activities and tallest tower structure building
• Creating, designing and building pendulums out of recycled materials and paint to create unique patterns on tote bags
• Robotics, programming language and exploring coding with Artie - a robot that each participant was able to take home
• The science behind slime
• Conversations around Artificial Intelligence and the need for representation within STEM
• And finally, a tour of UW School of Architecture, a conversation with Professor Boake and lunch!

Keep an eye out for more TechGyrls opportunities coming up in the months ahead!

We are in the sixth year of the Region of Waterloo's Early Years Engage quality improvement program. This year, the program is focusing on grounding child care in the six pedagogical approaches outlined in How Does Learning Happen? Ontario's Pedagogy For The Early Years. Read our blog to learn more about the six approaches and how we're implementing them in our own child care programming.

We are so thrilled to welcome Nataleigh Ballantyne to our team as our new Director of Philanthropy!

Nataleigh brings to our team a slew of experience in marketing, event planning, and sponsorship.

She is the founder and owner of Toronto's first tiny chapel, Love Shack Chapel, and has worked with national companies such as Edeleman Canada and Junior Achievement Canada.

Please join us in welcoming Nataleigh to the YWCA Cambridge team!

YWCA Cambridge is looking for a person who is passionate about gender equity and issues that impact cis and trans women and girls, non-binary and two-spirit individuals to fill the position of Manager of Advocacy.

Our work at YWCA Cambridge is impossible without the community contributions behind us. We’re thrilled to highlight those who continue to support via donations, attending events and volunteering.  

This month we’d like to thank Nicole Schiener for her continued support of YWCA Cambridge and our mission.  Nicole is a 2020 Women of Distinction winner, has facilitated past workshops through her private practice for our staff, is on the 2023 Women of Distinction committee and recently attended our International Women’s Day event. 

Nicole is a Registered Psychotherapist, Certified Compassion Fatigue Professional and the owner of Peace and Possibility, providing individual strengths and research-based counselling to women and trauma informed, mental health and wellness workshops for organizations. She is a graduate of Leadership Waterloo Region, sat on Regional Committees addressing gender-based violence and contributes articles to the Gottman Institute Blog. (Her areas of focus are: healthy relationships, conscious parenting, stress and anxiety management, burnout prevention and recovery and workplace wellbeing.)

Thank you Nicole for your continued support!