Food Justice in a Time of COVID
Event Details
Access to good food is a basic human right. But what does food security mean without an attention to the conditions involved in producing and distributing that food? This panel will draw links between barriers to food access and the precarious working conditions involved in food production, in order to highlight the demand for “food justice”. Further, this panel will explore the ways in which the current global pandemic has intensified food injustice for marginalized communities.
One facet of health care which is overlooked is access to food and how precarious food security is for those losing jobs in a pandemic. Systemic oppression thwarts marginalized communities’ ability to properly feed themselves and their loved ones. This panel will discuss the oft-ignored issue of food access and systemic barriers leading to food precarity as it affects activists and their communities. The panelists examine food accessibility and how barriers to accessing good food is itself a health crisis.
Date: October 28, 2020
Time: 5:00 PM EDT – 6:30 PM EDT
Location: Online Platform – Zoom
Speakers: Tracey-Ann Hines, Dr. Roberta K. Timothy, Sureya Ibrahim & Hansel Igbavboa
Tracey-Ann Hines
Tracey-Ann is a former migrant worker. She has been an active member of Justice for Migrant Workers for the past 5 years. Tracey-Ann has organized with others to fight for justice for injured workers. She has also participated in numerous community forums and panel discussions at George Brown College, Toronto College, and the University of Ottawa among others, about the intersection between gender and migration.
Dr. Roberta K. Timothy
Dr. Timothy is Director of Health Promotion at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She specializes in the areas of intersectionality and ethics in health work; health and race; transnational Indigenous health; and anti-oppression/anti-colonial approaches to mental health. Dr. Timothy prioritizes critical and creative approaches to knowledge production that reflect experiences and aspirations of migrant, refugee, African/Black diasporic, and transnational Indigenous communities. She has extensive teaching experience with particular expertise in critical health theory and social justice health policy development and implementation. Her scholarship contributes to critical race theory by examining how factors such as gender, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, transgenerational connections, and historical and contemporary intersectional violence impact African/Black communities health, and by centering community resistance through innovative decolonizing health practices. Dr. Timothy is also co-founder and consultant at Continuing Healing Consultants where she implements and teaches her intersectional mental health model “Anti-Oppression Psychotherapy”. She is an interdisciplinary scholar and health practitioner who is also a political scientist who examines global health and ethics from a critical trauma-informed decolonizing framework.
Sureya Ibrahim
Sureya Ibrahim, is Supervisor of Community Connections at the Centre for Community Learning & Development. She is Co- founder of Mother of Peace and has been featured on CBC Radio, CBC Television and in The New York Times. She has been involved in many community development projects, including the Regent Park Catering Collective, which has catered for more than 300 events and created income-generating opportunities for over 65 Regent Park residents. Originally from Ethiopia, she has lived, volunteered and worked with community in Regent Park, Toronto for many years ever since, volunteering, studying, and working in the community. She was honoured with numerous awards including: Woman Who Inspires award from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women; Distinguished Service Award from the Muslim Association of Canada, the Phenomenal Woman award, the Jane Jacobs Prize, Victims and Victim Services from The Attorney General, Bhayany Family Foundation Awards from United Way and Community Champions award from CBC.
Hansel Igbavboa
Hansel Igbavboa is a multidisciplinary artist who is passionate about social equity and innovation. He organizes with social justice seeking groups both within and outside of higher education settings to create safer and more inclusive communities. He uses the arts as a tool for calling attention to social issues and celebrating marginalized folks. He is a dancer, singer, videographer, photographer and creative director.
