Wrapping up the year, the International Institute for Child Rights and Development held its Annual General Meeting in November to share highlights, lessons and impacts from the 2017-2018 fiscal year.
This year, together with you, we made some exciting movements for child rights, particularly for Indigenous and newcomer-refugee children. Highlights include engaging the Premier of British Columbia (BC) and his cabinet in discussions related to our evaluation report of the 3Nations initiative, a collaboration between three Indigenous peoples to support child and community well-being in in Northwestern BC. We also had the privilege of involving influential Elders in our YouLEAD programming to discuss the importance of Indigenous values for child and family programming, which were integrated into a new educational framework.
Learn more about these accomplishments in our 'scrapbook journal' report, focused on the four areas of our mission: 1) leading with children, 2) facilitating child-centred learning opportunities, 3) fostering healing and accountability to children, and 4) creating connections across sectors and systems.
Our journey this past year has been busy and reflective. In particular, we put our strategic planning process on hold to address our leadership transition. After more than 25 years, Michele Cook and Philip Cook, made the difficult decision to shift their roles from helping to manage the organization to taking on Associate terms to contribute to a smaller number of projects. IICRD is especially grateful to our Financial Administrator, Zorah Staar, for her many contributions to help us with this transition.
"It has been a rich journey and pleasure working with such a committed and skilled network of child honouring advocates over the past 25 years, to further children’s dignity, belonging and justice." - Dr. Philip Cook
Supported by many months of Board discussions, IICRD is thrilled to welcome long-time Associate Vanessa Currie to step into the role of Executive Director who started in mid-November 2018.
During our Annual General Meeting, our election confirmed Associate, Bill Myers, as a returning Board Director. We also thanked Wendy Rowe and Kevin Craig for their leaderership and wisdom as outgoing Directors. Learn more about our elected Directors, led by Chair, Katie-Shaw Raudoy.
We look forward to continued conversations with you over the year ahead to carve out a new path for IICRD, while staying grounded in our values and commitment to create a healthier future for children.
