Montrose Cultural Centre

By Emily Keller

Grande Prairie Volunteer Services Bureau

Prejudice, intolerance the focus of GPVSB conference Saturday

Sep 19, 2019 | 12:15 PM

The Grande Prairie Volunteer Services Bureau will be hosting a conference on overcoming prejudices this Saturday.

What is being called “NOT ME”… The Presumption of Tolerance, the full-day conference is in partnership with the Grande Prairie Public Library and facilitated by the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre.

Carol-Anne Pasemko, Executive Director of the GPVSB, says it aims to teach attendees how to recognize, respond to and overcome prejudice within the community.

“As a community, as a group, as an organization whose primary function is to support the non-profit sector, which of course deals with vulnerable population groups, how do we combat that? How do we give people the tools and the ability to say ‘no, this is not acceptable.’?”

Pasemko says a catalyst for this conference was an increase in negativity and prejudice around the country, specifically in Grande Prairie.

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“Over the summer, we certainly saw it come to the forefront in terms of the Facebook campaigns against the homeless, and people that were struggling throughout the community. There seems to be a lot of nastiness.”

Despite this, she adds while there is prejudice within the community, it is not specific to only Grande Prairie.

“This is across the country, I think everybody has sort of seen this increased level of hostility towards other people, and it’s just, bad manners, is what it boils down to.”

The conference is will run from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Teresa Sargent Hall in the Montrose Cultural Centre on Saturday, September 21.

Tickets are $20 per person and includes a lunch, and they can be purchased at the Grande Prairie Volunteer Services Bureau.

More information can be found by calling 780-538-2727 or by emailing programs@volunteergp.com.