The TC Girlz Club :
An organization of immigrant girls living in East Toronto supported by the South Asian Women’s Rights Organization (SAWRO). The Girlz Club’s aim is to provide recreational and leadership opportunities for the girls.
Recreational activities include traditional old country dancing. The girls are also involved in civic projects, such as campaigns for immigrant rights and actions against cuts to social programs. They also carry out volunteer work with SAWRO such as helping with child minding during programs or helping out the aunties during computer or ESL classes.
The Story of I Am a Muslim Girl:
The video project gave the girls, most of whom are Muslims, a chance to talk about racial stereotyping that they encounter. But once the project started, the discussions kept turning into general discussions about making choices independent of peer pressure and about gender roles—pretty much the kind of discussions that girls and young women everywhere in the world are having these days.
The girls realized that even having this discussion disproved the over-arching stereotype about Muslims, a stereotype that is used to justify military intervention against Muslim countries and repressive measures against Muslims in Western countries. The stereotype is that Muslim society is a dead society cut off from human development, a kind of zombie society that requires outside renovation to breathe life into it. The girls reject this de-humanizing stereotype with their video statement: I am a Muslim Girl, and I Am Not a Zombie!
