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Centre for Human Rights, Equity & Inclusion
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Past Events

This is a selection of past Inclusion Day/Week events hosted by the Centre for Human Rights, Equity, and Inclusion. You can view more videos available on our YouTube account. Go to the Inclusion Week 2025 page.

2023

Reclaiming Social Justice in EDI

Highlights

Inclusion Week 2023 took place on March 6th-10th, in collaboration with partners Amnesty International, Athletics and Recreation, Glendon’s Office of Student Affairs, Schulich School of Business, Student Community and Leadership Development (SCLD), The Centre for Sexual Violence Response, Support & Education (the Centre) and the YorkU Human Rights & Health Equity Collective and Glendon’s Office of Student Affairs. Events were in-person, online and hybrid, and attracted over 550 staff, students and faculty from the York community and beyond.

What does Social Justice have to do with it?

An in-person/hybrid fireside chat featured Prof. Susan Dion, Associate Vice President - Indigenous Initiatives; Rania El Mugammar, Artist + Anti-Oppression Consultant; Remi Warner, Director, Human Rights Services, Toronto Metropolitan University; and Prof. Jessica Vostermans, Critical Disability Studies Program moderated by Carol Ruiz of CHREI . Over 100 participants attended this event. 
Watch the Video

Reclaiming the Transformative roots of DEDI/EDI

a Keynote speech by renowned equity and thought leader, Kike Ojo-Thompson. Attended by close to 70 people. 

Read more about Kike and the KOJO Institute

Inclusion is Transformative!

Keynote session by Olympic swimmer, Mark Tewksbury, hosted by Athletics and Recreation. Attended by around 200 people, including members of York’s Varsity sports teams, staff and faculty. 

Advancing Organizational Change to Foster a Culture of Belonging

CHREI conducted a special session of a REDDI core workshop from its REDDI Series which was attended by 42 participants. 

Interactive Events

“A Long Overdue Conversation about Oppression & Privilege” in partnership with SCLD This interactive session focused on sharing experiences of privilege and oppression. Attended by over 30 staff, students and faculty. 

Building a Community of Practice among DEDI educators and organizers co-organized with The Centre.  This initiative will continue beyond IW, to build connections and share ideas about DEDI work. Attended by almost 20 staff and students. 

Voices Unheard: Centering Marginalized Voices in University

A poetry reading sessionn led by Amnesty International. Attended by over 20 staff, faculty and students. 

Campus Events

Inclusion for Whom? an alternative campus tour led by the YU Human Rights and Health Equity Collective, to reflect on the challenges of “inclusion” and “community” in the context of the ongoing housing and cost of living crisis that impacts many York students. Attended by over 20 participants. Missed it? You can do the Walk yourself.
View the website developed by the Human Rights and Health Equity Collective here. 

Glendon’s Office of Student Affairs led a week-long forum where the community was encouraged to share messages about the theme of Reclaiming the Transformative Roots of DEDI/EDI. There were over 150 participants.

How Can business promote social justice?

This panel was hosted by The Schulich School of Business and featured Prof. Irene Henriques, (Professor of Sustainability & Economics); Prof. Ashwin Joshi, (Associate Dean Programs, Director of the MBA Program in India); Sadaf Parvaiz, CA, Inclusion & Diversity Leader at GHD; and with Dr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Advisor to the Office of the Dean, Managing Director at Rousseau, moderating.  

2023 Gallery

Dr. Shiela Cote-Meek's opening speech
Who gets to rest
Who gets to rest?
Simone Samuels and Mark Tewksbury
Semaine de l’inclusion 2023
Schulich Panel
Alternative Campus Tour
Glendon

2022

Building and Sustaining Equitable & Caring Futures

Highlights

The 2022 Inclusion Week series ran from February 28 to March 3, 2022 and was conducted online. It featured fireside chats and interactive, skills-based workshops that explored solidarity and equitable sustainability.

Videos

Who gets to rest?

This online fire-side chat featured a thoughtful conversation about the question of who gets to rest - how work shapes how we rest, the harms from current patterns of rest and what happens when care work is not counted or valued. It was led by Prof. Ethel Tungohan (Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism), Prof. Soma Chaterjee, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, and Alanah Broomfield and Olamide Olatoye, YU varsity athletes and co-presidents of the Black & Indigenous Varsity Student Alliance (BIVSA) and moderated by Carol Ruiz of CHREI.
Watch the video

The Call to Solidarity: Contingencies and Incongruities in Working toward Justice

Keyonote Speaker Prof. Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández spoke about solidarity, its meanings and spoke about how solidarity might figure as a framework for working toward just, caring, equitable, and sustainable futures.    
Watch the Video

Solidarity and Liberation: How do we organize across difference?

This panel discussed the need for dialogue, mutual support and the recognition of interdependence in the work of solidarity across difference. It was led by Sabina Chaterjee (Doctoral Candidate, Gender, Feminist & Women's Studies), Shanese Anne Steele (Writer, Activist, Facilitator and Equity Consultant), Wazmah Osman (Film maker, writer and Assistant Professor at Temple University, Department of Media and Communications, and moderated by Zahleh Afshar of CHREI.
Watch the video

Orienting Yourself to Allyship

An interactive session/workshop co-created and led with Student Community & Leadership Development (SCLD), this session offered a series of engaging activities and reflection exercises that challenge participants to:  Contextualize their social location based on their identity, deepen their understanding of allyship in a personal and institutional setting, and practice active allyship and develop strategies to have brave conversations.  

The Ecology of Allyship

This interactive workshop deepened the exploration of concepts of allyship and solidarity. As a follow-up session to Orienting Yourself to Allyship, this workshop explores the multiple roles people can play in building solidarity across lines of difference, examples of solidarity movements, and personal reflections on how to find your own stake in movements. This is the second part of the Allyship session presented in collaboration with SCLD.

Go to Inclusion Week 2025 page