Please join us for the first Cafe of the fall season.
Rotarian Bill Feyrer provides insight into Rotary projects in Honduras and political activist Tyson Strandlund brings recent news from Argentina and Venezuela. There will be time for discussion and questions.
Everyone is welcome! Refreshments including Fair Trade Nicaraguan coffee. Donations gratefully accepted.
Sponsored by Central America Support Committee (CASC)
Friday, May 31st, 2024Paul Phillips Hall at Fernwood Community Association1923 Fernwood RoadDoors open at 7:00 PM: 7:30 PM presentation.
Join us for a slideshow and first hand report from a member of the 30th annual Ernesto Che Guevara Brigade to Cuba. Kay Gimbel will present his photos and talk about his recent experience as a Brigade member in Cuba. Several other Brigade members will also be in attendance and will join in the discussion during the Q&A.
Everyone is welcome! Refreshments including Fair Trade Nicaraguan coffee. Donations are gratefully received. Sponsored by Central America Support Committee (CASC) www.victoriacasc.orghttps://www.facebook.com/vcasc/
Friday, April 26 – doors 7 pm, 7:30 pm presentation
A talk by anthropologist and author Peter Gose
In the last 30 years, Indigenous anti-mining struggles in the Andes have been widespread and highly visible. Previously, however, mining was integrated into the Indigenous agrarian world and its ritual relations to the land. This talk sheds light on that radical reversal to better understand contemporary anti-extractivist struggles in Peru and Bolivia.
Everyone is welcome! Refreshments include Fair Trade Nicaraguan coffee. Donations gratefully accepted.
Paul Phillips Hall at Fernwood Community Association 1923 Fernwood Road
Presentation by Francisco Canjura, a Salvadoran who was a 2014 election observer and has returned to El Salvador on several occasions.
Bring your comments and questions to this discussion about recent events in Central America’s smallest and most densely populated country. Also, we remember Archbishop Oscar Romero, now known as Saint Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in San Salvador, on March 24, 1980.
Doors open and music at 7 pm: presentation at 7:30 pm.
Everyone is welcome! Refreshments include fair trade Nicaraguan coffee. Donations are appreciated.
Paul Phillips Hall at Fernwood Community Association
Join us in February at Cafe Simpatico for a film screening of La Tumba Mambi.
The docu-fiction La Tumba Mambi is the result of a long collaboration between University of Victoria anthropologist Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, Cuban DJ Jigüe, and the members of the Tumba Francesa La Caridad de Oriente, a traditional cultural group located in Santiago de Cuba. Shot entirely in Eastern Cuba and edited in Havana over a period of more than 6 years, this short-length film of 27 minutes speaks to how friendship can make things happen in spite of daily life challenges.
Filmmaker and professor, Alexandrine Boudreault -Fournier will be present to discuss the film and answer questions.
Everyone is welcome! Refreshments including Fair Trade Nicaraguan coffee. Donations are welcome.
Sponsored by Central America Support Committee (CASC)
Friday, February 23, 2024
Paul Phillips Hall at Fernwood Community Association
1923 Fernwood Road
Doors open at 7:00 PM: music at 7:30 PM; presentation at 8:00 PM.
You are invited to Cafe Simpatico for the Victoria premiere of an exciting and thougthful new documentary film: After Arrival.
Launched as part of the World Refugee Day events in Canada, in 2021 this film showcases the incredible journey of three LGBTQIA+ refugee claimants who have become leaders in our community. It gives a glimlpse into the experience of Dennis Juarez, Kristi Pinderi (he/him), and Norma Lize.
These remarkable individuals all arrived in Canada as refugee claimants and they each made significant community impact through their leadership.
Thanks to the Coalition for Survivors of Torture for the film see: https://www.vcst.ca. The film will be followed by a discussion adn Q&A session with local activists.
Friday October 28th Doors: 7pm Film: 7:30pm Paul Phillips Hall, Fernwood Community Association, 1923 Fernwood Road.
Refreshments and Nicaraguan Organic Fair Trade coffee available.
All welcome. Admission by donation.
Come see old friends and familiar facts.
Presented by the Victoria Central America Support Committee (CASC)
If you live in Victoria or nearby Saanich, Oak Bay, or Esquimalt and need a ride to Cafe please call Robbie at 250-383-0674.
You are invited to Cafe Simpatico – Live, in person and on location!
Friday April 29
Doors open at 7 pm. Live music with “Dancing on a Pony Keg.”
Presentation at 8 pm:
Canadian Tourism in Cuba with Robbie Clarke, local community and international solidarity activist.
Refreshments and Fair-Trade Organic coffee available. Admission by donation.
Paul Phillips Hall, Fernwood Community Association, 1923 Fernwood Road
The Victoria Central America Support Committed acknowledges that this event will be held on the unceded territory of the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations.
Francis lived in exile in Canada from the Pinochet regime with her family and returned to Chile in 1980 to attend university. She worked with the Human Rights commission. Four decades later she continues to work for Human Rights in Chile. She focussed on the rights of children through many organizations including the UN, in education at the grassroots level, part of the team writing the reports to the Human Rights UN Committee, working with the people whose human rights were violated (tortured, families of the disappeared), and young people in the poblaciónes.
She has been president of ACCION, the Chilean Association of NGOs; member of the board of the National network of children and youth NGO and a member of the Participation National Council, created by President Bachelet, that for a year worked on changes in laws on civil society participation. Since 2012. she has been one of the Block for Children spokespersons, a national network of approximately 100 children’s organizations and institutions. She continues to dedicate her passion for rights action at the grassroots level. Her presentation will be followed by a discussion and a Q&A.
Presenters: James Phillips, Ph.D. and William Feyrer
Phillips is a cultural anthropologist at Southern Oregon University. His book Honduras in Dangerous Times: Resistance and Resilience was published in 2015.
Feyrer, of Victoria, is speaking in hims many hears of involvement with Honduran market women and their families.