Walk with VanUs at the Women’s Memorial March

Event Location: Meet at noon at the NW corner of Main and Hasting (in front of OWL Drugs), see map below

For more information before Feb 14, send email to: [email protected]. On the morning of Feb 14th, text or call: Nan Gregory (604-817-1450) or Yvonne Marcus (604-328-1466)

You are invited to join Vancouver Unitarians from the IPA (IBPOC+Allies) and Social Justice teams to march together at the 33rd annual Women’s Memorial March to honour the lives of the missing and murdered women and all gender-diverse peoples’ lives lost in the Downtown Eastside.

The march protocols are listed at the end of this post. March for the public starts at 12 pm from Carnegie (Main and Hastings) until 4 pm. All are welcome as the march takes to the streets and proceeds through the Downtown Eastside. Many stops are made to commemorate where women were last seen or found.

Unitarians will meet at the NW corner of Main St and Hastings at noon on Wednesday, Feb 14. We will not carry the Vancouver Unitarians sign. Photos of missing loved ones are welcome. The march is made possible by donations from individuals and organizations.  The expenses will be $10,000 this year.

You can donate online or by cheque. Please donate online at https://dewc.ca/donate-online and in the question “Where would you like to give?” please specify the Women’s Memorial March. Please make cheques payable to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, and include Feb 14 Women’s Memorial March on the memo line. Mail cheques to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, 302 Columbia St. Vancouver, BC V6A 4J1. All donations over $10 will be gratefully acknowledged with a tax-deductible receipt.

Please see the Women’s Memorial March website for history of the march and protocols to be followed during the march. Livestreaming of the march will be available on Facebook.

The following text is taken from the Women’s Memorial March website:

• KNOW THE PROTOCOL: In a good way, we want to inform everyone about the protocol for the march that has been in place for three decades:
   At 10 am, there will be a family and community remembrance at Main and Hastings.
   At noon, the elders and family members make a circle at Main and Hastings for the prayer circle and then the march proceeds.
   Women elders carrying medicines are at the front, followed by all women elders and family members and women drummers. The quilt made by loved ones in the DTES community is carried behind the family members and drummers.
   Everyone is invited to follow. We ask that you leave your organizational banners at home, signs honouring women’s lives are welcome.
   The march makes a number of stops along the way for ceremony to honour where women were last seen or found.
   At approximately 2 pm we stop again at Main and Hastings for speeches by community members, followed by a healing circle and drummers at Oppenheimer Park around 3 pm, and finally a community feast at the Japanese Language Hall from 4-5 pm.

Compelling documentary:  Finding Dawn
Whether or not you are able to attend the march, please watch the compelling documentary, Finding Dawn, by acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh. This documentary puts a human face on our national tragedy – the epidemic of missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada. This documentary is available for free viewing here.