The Toronto Latin American Film Festival (LATAFF), Sony Center Canada and the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples present: Trans Latina Ontario (TLO) Digital Stories.

A Q & A will also take place following the 8 short films:

"Unbroken" by Celeste Bilbao-Joseph (Argentina) 
"He Found Himself Within Her" by Adalyn Díaz (Mexico)
"It's Been a Long, Long Way" by Alex Freeland (Argentina)
"Arrival of Miss Latismiere" by Gigi Latismiere (Mexico)
"Thank You Canada" by Maria Clara De Sena (Brazil)
"Why I'm Here" by Paulina (Mexico)
"Confident Woman" by Tanya (Ecuador)
"Ubuntu, I Am Because We Are" by Xica DaDiva (Honduras)
 
The event is free and will take place on Friday, October 19, 2018 from 7:00-10:00 PM at the George Ignatieff Theatre in Toronto. 

University of Toronto's Hart House and The Centre for Community Partnerships are hosting a screening of the documentary Migrant Dreams, which highlights the exploitation of migrant workers in Canada who arrived through the Government of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A discussion will take place after the screening with Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan, Associate professor and Lead Investigator of The Migrant Mothers Project, and Sara Asalya, Palestinian immigrant and one of RBC’s top 25 immigrants of Canada.

The event is free and will take place on Oct. 10, 2018, 6-8:30 pm in the East Common Room of Hart House.

The film ‘I Am Rohingya: A Genocide in Four Acts’ will be playing at the University of Toronto on October 9th, 2018 at 6:30PM.

The film documents the "journey of fourteen refugee youth who take to the stage to re-enact their families’ experiences in Burman and beyond; before, during, and immediately after the escalation of military violence in their native homeland, Rakhine state; their unforgiving escape by foot and by boat to makeshift camps in Bangladesh; and their eventual resettlement in the strikingly un-familiar Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario." A Q&A period with the director and the cast will take place following the screening.

At a time when the number of migrants and displaced persons around the world is dramatically rising and the debate in Canada is becoming increasingly ideological and polarized, the Global Migration and Health Initiative organizes a conversation on refugees today - their identity, reality, and the challenges they face, health and health-related but not only - as seen by three presenters who contribute quite different if complementary perspectives. The three presenters will be:

1. Jean-Nicolas Beuze
UNHCR Representative in Canada

2. Cynthia Guignard
Former Volunteer, EuroRelief,
Moria Refugee Camp, Lesvos, Greece

3. Andrea A. Cortinois
Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
Co-Director, Global Migration and Health Initiative

The event will take place on October 4, 2018 from 5-7 pm at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in Toronto.  Registration is now open. The event is co-sponsored by the Juxtaposition Global Health Magazine, Health Studies Students' Union (HSSU), and the ​Office of Global Public Health Education & Training at DLSPH.

The #donttakethekids movement has requested that children’s toys be piled in front of the US Consulate in Toronto on June 8, 2018 at 2 pm.

"The US administration has found a powerful new way to stop people from crossing its borders: taking away their children. In recent months, over 700 little kids – including more than 100 babies and toddlers – have been taken from their detained parents and sent to facilities across the country."

The toys will represent a donation to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is fighting the new policy in court. The event details can be found here. 

The Challenging Migrant Detention Conference is happening on June 19 -21, 2018 in Montreal, Canada.

The conference will draw on experiences of detention and resistance in multiple countries, and discuss strategies to challenge migrant detention, including research, litigation and community mobilization.  
 
Speakers include:
François Crépeau, McGill University, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants; Jacqueline Bhabha, Harvard University; Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford; Jean-Nicolas Beuze, UNHCR; Guglielmo Schinina, IOM; representatives of the International Detention Coalition, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, End Immigration Detention Network, and many others 
 
Topics include:
·         Detention of children 
·         Migrant voices: former detainees speak out
·         Mental health impact of immigration detention
·         Migrants’ experiences at the US/Mexico border
·         Resistance to deportation and detention in Israel, Italy and Greece
·         Fortress Europe: From the Balkans route to Mediterranean hotspots
·         Detention of migrants in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia
·         Racialization and Othering in the detention process
·         Innovative judicial remedies, from habeas corpus to Charter damages
·         Strategies for minimizing immigration detention in Canada

Register at:
http://www.sherpa-recherche.com/en/partage-des-savoirs/colloques-2/
 

The largest majority of black asylum seekers in 2017 were Haitians, mainly crossing from the U.S.-Canada border. The Caribbean Solidarity Network and Hart House Social Justice Committee at the University of Toronto are hosting an event "to explore the historical context of black asylum seekers at the Canadian border, more specifically the unique experience of Haitian migrants and the current political climate in the Trump-Trudeau era. The panel will discuss current efforts to provide legal support for Haitians at the Lacolle, Quebec border and the challenges facing in-land border crossings and the refugee claim process for claimants that do not match the ‘traditional asylum seeker’ narrative."
​
Panelists include: Dr. Melanie Newton, Saron Gebresellassi and Fedora Mathieu. The event will take place from on March 29, 2018 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM at the University of Toronto's Hart House.