“Our theme is the strength and power of women and girls.” That was the thrust behind the city's first TEDxYellowknifeWomen event, said organizer Maureen Van Overliw.
While there have been previous TEDx events in Yellowknife, this was the first one to feature all-female speakers.
December 9, 2018.
The first-ever TEDxYellowknife Women event was held at Chateau Nova on Sunday and featured 12 women speakers from the city.
Every year TED hosts a women’s conference and alongside that, communities like Yellowknife can apply to host their own version.
“And so you’ve got a small window that sort of piggybacks onto their time frame,” said Van Overliw. The talks, which took place at the Chateau Nova, were professionally filmed and later aired on the TEDx platform.
Van Overliw said she was surprised by the interest this event generated from the community.
“I think at 11 o’clock at night I’d put up a Facebook post saying I’m thinking about doing this, is anyone interested in either speaking or attending, I was just kind of curious to see what the interest was like,” she said. The next morning when she woke up, that post had garnered hundreds of likes and comments and over a thousand views.
“Even before I applied for a license, that was definitely a good indicator that there was some interest,” she said.
After applying for a license from TEDx she put out a call on Facebook asking potential speakers to submit an outline and bio by a certain deadline. All twelve speakers submitted that outline, with topics like women in politics, education, mental health and the justice system.
“From a global community perspective, as well as from a community within Yellowknife perspective, there are so many opportunities to showcase the talent, strength and voices of women,” said Van Overliw. “If we don’t take initiative to do that we may miss those opportunities and they may not be as visible.”
It's important to give women this kind of platform so that others can look to them as role models and leaders she said.
“Whereas otherwise, they might not have had the chance to see them,” said Van Overliw. The majority of the speakers have never had this type of opportunity before.
“(For) some it’s their very first time for a televised talk and so it gives them an opportunity to really share their position and their interests with the global community as well,” said Van Overliw.
“From a mentoring perspective, it provides opportunities for others to look up and to see someone on stage that might not be represented anywhere else. And then to see that person up on stage they can identify and connect with them in ways that maybe they’ve never connected before,” she said.
City councillor Stacie Smith was one of the speakers and gave a talk on perseverance and resilience, sharing her story from growing up on Con Mine property to becoming a business owner and politician.
“It’s about all the struggles that I had to overcome being Indigenous, being female, being overweight, being teased and tormented, being called ugly as a kid,” said Smith. “And taking all of those situations and putting them toward something that was good.”
After being elected to council in October, Smith said she wanted to take this opportunity to share those struggles and show people where she's coming from.
“Being a business owner myself and now going into politics, women aren’t really expected to be in politics, there’s very few of us,” she said.
“Being women in business it’s a struggle, because it’s definitely a man’s world and in 2018, it's still that persona. And we have to jump that line and give other women and other girls the momentum and the strength to be able to see that others have done it, I can do it too.”
Amanda St. Denis spoke about raising a transgender child in Yellowknife in a talk titled Unconditionally Trans-parent.
“It was basically just talking about my journey as a parent supporting my daughter,” said St. Denis.
“I really want to normalize talking about gender diversity with the event, to hopefully make the world a little bit safer for her and other transgender children.”
The decision to speak at the event wasn’t one she made easily. But after thinking it over, St. Denis said she felt the need to seize this opportunity to speak about an important issue.
“With my daughter being trans and me doing this talk, I’m outing her a little bit, by doing that,” she said.
“In my reflection to whether I was going to do this or not, I definitely checked in with her. She’s very excited, disappointed that she couldn’t come, she’s only six, so not for her ears.”
It’s important to tell her story because when it comes to trans issues, a lot of stigma and misunderstanding remains St. Denis said.
“Transgender people are still every day fighting for their existence,” she said.
“So if there’s something I can do, like this, that just makes some small difference and makes the fight a little less hard, that’s why I’m here today.”