By Jana Girdauskas Recently, the documentary short Period. End Of Sentence., won an Oscar. The movie highlights the stigma and shame surrounding menstruation in some areas of India. Here in Canada we experience a similar issue: the period is still a source of whispers and embarrassment, particularly for young women. The truth is, approximately 50% of […]

Some of the most passionate mental health advocates work in women’s shelters. Women on the front-lines for addressing mental health needs. Women supporting other women to find safety, stability, and empowerment in their lives — in a way, sisterhood embodied. We need to hear their voices as Canada embarks on necessary (and overdue) conversations on […]

Dr. Cheryl Wagner is a primary care physician and a 2016 YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction. I was in Moose Factory Hospital on the edge of James Bay when the call came to take over the practice of a Toronto physician diagnosed with AIDS. That was thirty years ago. The full impact of the epidemic […]

On Bell Let’s Talk Day, we shatter the silencing effect of stigma and open up the dialogue about mental health. YWCA Toronto’s mental health programs for women were enriched last year with a community grant from Bell Canada, which helps us offer more programming for women at our Elm Centre who are coping with mental […]

YWCA Toronto Elm Centre tenant Tara Muldoon talks to MTV Canada about her non-profit organization YWCA Toronto Elm Centre tenant Tara Muldoon is giving a big F-You to the world. That is, she’s sharing her non-profit organization, F-You: The Forgiveness Project, with the world. The F-You Project is a monthly speaker series that asks one […]

Words are not always the best tools for conveying our past traumas, present struggles and future aspirations. Sometimes swirls of paint, fabric, beads and feathers do a much more vivid job of expressing and healing our innermost selves. Apanaki Temitayo M. is a Trinidadian-Canadian single mother who found both her calling and her salvation in […]

  YWCA Toronto’s Breakthrough program offers support for women who have experienced violence. Breakthrough participants help each other heal by finding new ways to understand and share their histories and futures through discussion, artistic expression and creative movement. Learn more about Breakthrough by visiting our website. The following poem, “Holding Impeccable Space”, was collectively authored […]

YWCA Toronto’s Elm Centre hosted a press conference for the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care regarding increased funding for narcotic addiction treatments in Toronto. Betty-Lou’s story demonstrates how important it is to have the right supports available. Two days before Christmas in 2001, I lost my son Pete to an accidental overdose of […]

Life is an odd adventure. The road of life has as many words to describe it – as the steps we use to walk along it.   I’ll pull up these words frightening, challenging, amazing… an adventure in faith, hope and love, to describe this present leg of my journey. Before the YWCA Elm Centre was […]

It is a tremendous honour to be named as one of Toronto’s Women of Distinction by the YWCA in the category of Health. This award is especially meaningful as it is given by women to women and recognizes the essential importance of the ongoing need to improve the lives of women and girls in this […]