In the summer of 2010 the Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements underwent restructuring and formed a collective to replace the staff positions of Director and Coordinator. Collective members share the administrative tasks and working committees are formed to fundraise for and deliver specific programs. The collective at present has members from Indigenous, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist traditions, as well as members who do not identify with a specific tradition. Members of the collective contribute at different levels, with some functioning more as advisors due to distance or work constraints. Here is more information about each of us, our work, and the perspectives we bring to the Interfaith Institute.
Christine Boyle
Marcy Cohen
Angela Contreras-Chavez
Laurel Dykstra
Noorin Fazal
Bonni Hanuse
Cynthia Oka
Wendy Loudon
Madeleine Macivor
Denise Nadeau
Priti Shah
Eleanor J. (Ellie) Stebner
Tasha Bassingthwaighte
Kathryn Poethig
Alannah Young
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Christine Boyle is the ISI’s coordinating staff person. She was raised in the United Church of Canada, and is grateful to call Coast Salish Territory home. A community organizer, activist and educator, Christine has a BSc in Urban Agriculture and First Nations Studies from UBC, and an MA in Religious Leadership for Social Change from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. Over the years she’s worked for the Vancouver School Board, Vancouver Coastal Health, and First United Church, among others. She’s coordinated community gardens, facilitated community kitchens, taught yoga, led youth retreats, participated in interfaith campaigns on workers rights and on marriage equality, spent lots of time chatting with people about their feelings, and fed hundreds of people at conferences, workshops, and in her home. Right now she is most passionate about amplifying progressive religious and spiritual voices in our Canadian political discourse. In her free time she rides her bicycle and enjoys the company of courageous people.
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Marcy Cohen has been involved in social justice issues for most of her adult life. For the last ten years she worked as the director of research and policy at a large health care union in British Columbia and served as the chair of the board for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in BC. Marcy has co-authored a number of research and policy reports on implications of health care privatization and on public solutions to the challenges within our health care system. She has also worked for many years on equity issues related to women’s employment, on training options for people with disabilities, and on the development of a living wage in Vancouver, initiating the development of interfaith organizing for this campaign. In each of these areas, Marcy worked with other unions, interfaith groups, community organizations and academics to advocate for policy changes that would support great equity and sustainability of public services. Marcy has a strong connection to her Jewish heritage and practices Marcy has a strong connection to her Jewish heritage and the practices of Vispassana Insight Meditation tradition.
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Angela Contreras-Chavez is a mother and a Canadian, born in the Global South. Upon earning her B.A. in cultural anthropology from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Angela went to work at the Apostolic Vicariate of El Petén-Guatemala monitoring human rights of the Maya-Kekchi internally displaced by the war. In Canada, Angela earned her Maîtrise en Sciences de la Mission from Université Saint-paul and Université d’Ottawa. Her thesis documented and analyzed the contributions of the Catholic Church to the truth, justice and reconciliation processes in Guatemala especially among the Maya. She does public legal education, independent evaluations, and socio-legal research and analysis with Verapax Management and Evaluations. Recently she has worked with PovNet, Parent Support Services Society, Philippino Social Workers Association, the Canadian Centre for International Justice, and Canadian CrossRoads. Currently she is running the Community Based Legal Education and Outreach Project for Temporary Foreign Workers with MOSAIC.
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Laurel Dykstra is a community-based popular educator and writer. She has ten years of history with intentional Christian communities in the US, Canada and Mexico. Her work has focused on urban poverty, Queer resistance and assimilation in churches, street theatre, and the activism of children, youth and families. Much of her writing engages justice issues in the Christian scriptures. She contributes to Sojourners Magazine and has written a book about Exodus from a first world, anti-empire perspective (Set Them Free The Other Side of Exodus, Orbis, 2002). Laurel is a postulant for ordination in the Diocese of New Westminster, Anglican Church of Canada.
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Noorin Fazal (BSc Cognitive Systems - Biopsych, Ling, CompSci, Phil), MA Education in Muslim Societies and Civilizations, MA in Teaching) is a passionate humanitarian, educator, scholar and artist. Over the years, she has been involved in social justice initiatives, including community service-learning and global citizenship curriculum development. Noorin is part of the first cohort of educators in the Secondary Teacher Education Program, based out of the Institute of Education, University of London, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies, in the United Kingdom. As part of her Master's level research, Noorin completed two field studies in religious education classrooms; critical questioning processes for teaching and learning, and virtue ethics pedagogy related to the question, 'what does it mean to be human?' For Noorin, this question is at the core of her faith; it is this Qur'anic concept of a common humanity that inspires her to engage in dialogue between individuals and communities. She is especially excited by collaborations involving sound, paint, movement and creative writing.
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Bonni Hanuse is of the Mamalilikala, from ‘Mimkwamilis (Village Island) of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation on her maternal side and Coast Salish from the Musqueam Nation on her paternal side. She has worked for many years in the inner city of Vancouver, most recently as a community developer and outreach worker with the Aboriginal Wellness Program, Vancouver Coastal Health . “My personal development is mainly a result of exploration of various cultural ceremonies and the universal truths I have embraced from these experiences. It is the essence of who I am in questing understanding of the experience of being displaced: uprooted, moved from its customary place.”
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Cynthia Oka is a young poet of color, community organizer and single mom of Chinese Javanese descent currently residing on unceded Coast Salish Territory. Currently she is coordinator of the Leadership Empowerment Activism Program (LEAP), based out of the Vancouver Status of Women, a 40-year-old feminist organization dedicated to the pursuit of womyn's full participation, self-determination and liberation in the lives of our communities. LEAP offers free training in anti-oppression, community organizing, transformative leadership, popular education, creative expression and group facilitation skills to womyn living with multiple systemic barriers.
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Wendy Loudon (BA Human and Social Development, University of Victoria; M.Ed Adult Education and Community Development, University of Toronto) is the Faculty Engagement Coordinator of the Ethics of International Engagement and Service Learning Project at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about providing opportunities for both young people and adults to experience personal and community transformation and strives to do this through her work and volunteer commitments. She is also very interested in community healing and peace building, particularly across cultures and religious groups. Wendy’s interest in spirituality started at a young age, through her extensive time in nature with her family. Although she does not consider herself a member of a specific faith group, she feels particularly drawn to the teachings of Native Spirituality, Buddhism and Hinduism, and engages in practices of meditation and yoga regularly.
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Madeleine Macivor is Associate Director of First Nations House of Learning, University of British Columbia. She has worked for the University of British Columbia since 1989 as Coordinator of Student Services for First Nations House of Learning, First Nations Coordinator for the Faculty of Forestry, and now as Associate Director for First Nations House of Learning. Madeleine is a graduate of the Native Indian Teacher Education Program (BEd, Elementary) and Ts'`kel Graduate Studies (MA, Science Education). She has a strong background in student services and a deep commitment to ensuring that Aboriginal people have access to quality post-secondary education opportunities that meet their needs and aspirations. Madeleine is currently completing her doctorate which looks at the development of Aboriginal post-secondary education policy in British Columbia. Madeleine is a Métis woman whose family comes from the historic Métis community of Lac Ste Anne in northern Alberta. She is the mother of three adult children and 11 grandchildren. Ceremonial practices are an important part of her life.
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Denise Nadeau (BA University of British Colombia; MLitt. St. Antony's College, Oxford; MDiv. Vancouver School of Theology; DMin. San Francisco Theological Seminary) is of mixed French, Irish, English and Mi'kmaq heritage. She is a scholar–activist who works as a practical theologian, movement therapist, and popular educator. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Religion and Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute at Concordia University and was Acting Director of the Interfaith Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements from 2006 to 2010. Much of Denise's recent work has been in the development of curriculi which educate about racism and colonialism as well as healing programs which combine expressive art therapies and spiritual practices in the repair of social suffering caused by sexist, racist, heterosexist, colonial and war violence. In 2009 she co-developed and wrote the University of Victoria Lenonet Staff and Faculty Aboriginal Cultural Awarenss (SFACT) curriculum. She has worked in both ecumenical and interfaith contexts for many years, and, in particular, in the area of Indigenous-Settler relationships. Her publications include Counting Our Victories: Popular Education and Organizing and numerous articles on non-violence, decolonization and deconstructing whiteness in Christian practice.
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Priti Shah (MBA, MBA) is a self employed, community-based activist, social justice advocate, and anti-racism trainer/facilitator. Since 1988, she has been actively lobbying and advocating on behalf of immigrant women and professionals, for equal employment status and recognition of international credentials in Canada. She is currently working on a living wage campaign with the Hospital Employees Union. She was involved in co -designing the curriculum for the first national Human rights conference for CUPE, “Our Voices Rising” and was the coordinator of the ISI Redistribution of Wealth Conference. She believes in practicing the philosophy of Hinduism as a “way of daily living” which embraces conscious peaceful co-existence with all creation.
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Eleanor J. (Ellie) Stebner: Ellie Stebner (BA, University of Alberta; Master of Divinity, Moravian Theological Seminary; MA, Marquette University; and PhD, Northwestern University) is the J.S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities and Associate Professor in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. She provides the institutional link for the Interfaith Summer Institute. Ordained in 1984 as a minister in the Moravian Church (a Christian Protestant denomination with roots to Nicholas von Zinzendorf in the 18th century and Jan Hus in the 15th century), she is an educator-scholar who has been active in various anti-racism, anti-sexism, and anti-poverty movements through the past 20 plus years. She writes and researches on women's history and religious movements for social change. Prior to coming to SFU in 2005, she was a professor of history and theology at the University of Winnipeg and the Chicago Theological Seminary, and served as a congregational minister in Moravian and Presbyterian denominations. Her concern is linking academia with movements for social change.
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Tasha Bassingthwaighte has been a student of Buddhism for about seventeen years, practicing in the Plum Village tradition, and is currently an aspirant of the Order of Interbeing. She has actively worked with refugees both in Canada and in the UK and has also lived in France, Spain, and Nepal. She has experience, studied and been involved in non-violent activism, intentional communities and voluntary simplicity movements. She currently coordinates a women’s centre in Nelson, BC, where she lives with her partner and daughter.
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Kathryn Poethig (Ph.D. Religion and Society, Graduate Theological Union; M.Div. Union Theological Seminary; B.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago). Kathryn has lived and worked in Southeast Asia for over twenty years. She is currently Associate Professor of Global Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her area expertise includes global gender issues, particularly feminism and militarism, religious social ethics, and religion, violence, and peacemaking. Dr. Poethig supervised education for Southeast Asian refugees in the US and Asia for 15 years. Her work focuses on progressive religious citizenship in Southeast Asia, particularly in areas of complex conflict and peacemaking. She has written on the Dhammayietra, the annual peace walk in Cambodia as transnational example of engaged Buddhism. More recently, she has focused on Filipino feminist theologians' frameworks for "just peace" for both Communist and Muslim insurgencies in light of the US war on terrorism. She is currently writing about religious frames for sanctuary as extraterritorial space against the state. Dr. Poethig is on the Working Committee of the People's Forum on Peace for Life, a Global South-based interfaith initiative resisting militarized globalization and creating life-enhancing alternatives.
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Alannah Young is from the Opaswayak Cree Nations in Manitoba. She is an Anisnabe Ikway from Opaskwayak and Peguis Nations (MB), has been a counsellor and trainer with University of British Columbia 's First Nations House of Learning in Vancouver (1995-2009) and is currently a researcher/trainer for UBC Faculty of Education and Justice Institute of BC. She is also pursuing doctoral studies in UBC Educational Studies. Her areas of interest are working within Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Indigenous Elders' pedagogies and critical place-based
knowledge. Alannah's ongoing work has been developing and delivering wholistic programming that combines non-violence principles, embodied pedagogy, and artistic socially transformative approaches with reaffirming Indigenous Leadership and Sovereignty. Alannah's publications include: Young, Alannah, E. and Nadeau, Denise, M. "Decolonizing Bodies," in Indigenous Women: The State of Our Nations, Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal , 29.2, Spring (2005); Young, Alannah, E. and Nadeau, Denise, M.,"Educating bodies for self determination: A decolonizing strategy," Canadian Native Journal of Education , UBC, Volume 29:1, 2006. Leslie G. Roman, S. Noble, R. Wainer, and Alannah Earl Young. (2009),Journal of Qualitative studies.” No Time for Nostalgia: Asylums,Residential Schools, Medicalized Colonialism in British Columbia (1859-1897) and Artistic Praxis for Social Transformation.” Archibald, J. ed. (In Press). "A Documentation of Red Pedagogy Praxis:Transmitting Indigenous Knowledge through Elders, Storywork & Land.” and Indigenous Knowledge Systems". Indigenous Education Institute of Canada, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia ( ejournal) Gardener, E & C Kenny eds. (In Press). "Indigenous Elders' Teachings on Leadership: Transmitting Indigenous Knowledge". Leadership Unbound UBC Press.
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