Transforming Our Future is a practical public legal education course designed for activists, advocates, and community service providers to learn about human rights law, equality rights, and how to develop legal strategies to address the impact of systemic discrimination.
Systemic discrimination occurs in many ways and in many contexts. For non-lawyers (and often lawyers as well!) identifying systemic discrimination and seeking change through legal rights is a daunting task. At the same time, West Coast LEAF cannot do its job to address systemic discrimination in the law without the expertise of community advocates and frontline workers.
Transforming Our Future is a two-day workshop designed to address these two realities. Many issues facing the individuals that seek out the help of community service organizations reflect the impact of systemic discrimination such as racism, sexism, ablism and homophobia. Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms promised Canadians something different; it promised that the governments of Canada would not exacerbate historical patterns of discrimination, that the legislation and policies of the majority would work to eradicate the experience of inequality, not add to it.
Transforming Our Future, taught by lawyers trained and expert in equality rights and the work of LEAF and West Coast LEAF, helps non-lawyers identify systemic discrimination and build concrete legal strategies to address it. Combining the expertise of participants with the history and experience of LEAF, Transforming Our Future creates the environment to imagine something different.