Since 2019, women from Lethbridge have organized a Women’s Memorial March.
This year’s annual march takes place Saturday, February 14, starting at City Hall.
“We come together to commemorate, honour and bring awareness to the national tragedy of missing and murdered Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Trans+ people in Canada,” organizers note.
The Women’s Memorial March started in Vancouver’s downtown eastside in response to the murder of Cheryl Ann Joe, a 26-year-old shíshálh Nation mother found on Powell Street.
Officials say out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community and caring for all women.
At present day, organizers say Indigenous women “disproportionately” continue to go missing or be murdered with minimal to no action to address these tragedies or the systemic nature of gendered violence, poverty, racism or colonialism.
Community members are invited to march in the downtown area to remember, grieve, heal and call for justice from 12 to 1 p.m. on Saturday.
