The theme for this year's International Women’s Day (IWD) is all about challenge. And how to rise to it. We support the IWD community who say, “We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world. From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.”

This theme is particularly poignant in light of the disproportionately vast challenges women have faced throughout the pandemic including job losses, salary cuts, the childcare juggle, and, of course, gender based violence. Education is key when it comes to creating the agency, voice, and confidence one needs to challenge and to advocate for change.

We at the Canada-UK Foundation and the Canada Memorial Foundation have chosen to honour and celebrate our women scholars for their academic achievements. Collectively, they are contributing to reducing gender bias and inequality in their fields of work and research by continuing to educate others.

Together we can build an inclusive future where women will be recognised and valued for their contributions. Together, let’s choose to challenge and do more.

20 years of Canada Reads. Begun in 2001, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) hosts an annual “Battle of the Books” beginning with 5 titles chosen by 5 celebrities. Each day from March 8 to 11 this year, the panellists will debate and eliminate one book until only one remains. Who will be this year’s winner? Below is a brief glimpse at this year's 5 titles, including 3 debut novels!

The Midnight Bargain by Calgary author C.L. Polk (2020) was selected by London-born broadcaster and former Olympian Rosey Edeh. Polk’s fantasy novel champions Beatrice, a protagonist seeking to usurp patriarchal marriage ceremonies through the use of magic. Edeh calls it an “abiding, beautifully paced social commentary.”

The nonfiction title, Two Trees Make a Forest, by London-based Jessica J. Lee (2020) is the book put forward by singer-songwriter Scott Helman. With the subtitle “On Memory, Migration and Taiwan,” Lee’s book (which won the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction) traces the author’s journey to her ancestral homeland that richly layers personal reflections, strong environmental/nature writing, and compelling critique of colonialism and insight into migration.

Mohawk actress Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs selected Joshua Whitehead’s first novel, Jonny Appleseed (2018). The book follows a young two-spirit Indigiqueer individual as he reconciles his life in the big city as a cybersex worker preparing to return home to the reservation for his stepfather’s funeral. Winner of the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for gay fiction and shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, Jacobs calls the book “a love letter to Indigiqueer, two-spirit people and the women of our communities. It finds the cracks of light in darkness, which is exactly what we need in 2021.”

Korean Canadian actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (who you may know from Kim’s Convenience or The Mandalorian) chose Hench (2020), the debut book by Toronto writer Natalie Zina Walschots. Sun-Hyung Lee chose the book for its “fantastic storytelling, with relatable and complex characters, razor sharp wit and smart dialog, and with themes that run deep and resonate long after the book is done.” When wronged working for a popular superhero, the heroine (a former administrator to villains) uses her smarts and wits to manipulate data and fight back.

Butter Honey Pig Bread (2021) by Nigerian-born Halifax-based Francesca Ekwuyasi rounds out the selection from Trinidadian Canadian chef musician and TV host Roger Mooking. A writer, filmmaker, and artist, Ekwuyasi composes a tale across 3 different continents; twin daughters and their mother torn apart by childhood trauma seek to repair their bond and the past in Lagos. Rich with Nigerian culture and told across Halifax, Montreal, London, and parts of Nigeria, Ekwuyasi’s debut novel is in a word, for Mooking, “majestic”.
Listen to previous conversations between authors and their champions here. The Canada Reads debates will be livestreamed each day (March 8-11) at 11am EST (4pm GMT) on CBC TV’s YouTube page.

We are pleased to share with you a very interesting webinar invitation received this week from our friends at the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund. A reminder too that their scholarship deadline is this weekend!

You are invited to a CCSF online seminar, How Algorithms and Data are Influencing You

CCSF Scholarship recipients will each present for 12 minutes, followed by a Q&A. Presentations will be made by:

Dr Gillian Brooks, Assistant Professor in Marketing, King's Business School, King's College London (CCSF Scholar 2011/12, PhD Cambridge).
Dr Zoetanya Sujon, Senior Lecturer and Programme Director in Communications and Media at London College of Communication (CCSF Scholar 2004/05, PhD LSE).
Thomas Vogl, Doctoral Student, University of Oxford, research on public sector organizational memory in the digital age (CCSF Blakes Scholar 2020/21).

We hope you can join us on Monday, 29 March 2021, 18.00-19.00 GMT on Zoom. Click here to register; you will register your name and receive a Zoom link by email.

Organised and moderated by:
Michelle Sahai, CCSF Committee
Robin Mansell, CCSF Chair
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The CCSF supports Canadians studying for a postgraduate degree in the UK. Chosen on the basis of academic or artistic excellence and ability to represent Canada in the UK and internationally, CCSF Scholars come from across the country, pursuing their studies in a variety of disciplines. Applicants must have completed at least one full-time term of study in the UK at the time they apply. Deadline for applications is 7 March 2021, see here.

In our spotlight this week is Rob Brant, Managing Partner at the London office of McCarthyTetrault, a Canadian top tier legal firm. A graduate of York's Osgoode Hall Law School, Rob worked at McCarthy's Toronto office for several years, before relocating to London in 1998 to assist with the European growth plans of one particular client. Clearly London life agreed with him, and with his family, as that "one year plan" is now approaching its 25 year anniversary!

At Osgoode, Rob's goal was to practice Indigenous law. Writing about this ambition, York University's alumni magazine said, "Half Mohawk and a descendent of Joseph Brant, the Mohawk Chief who led an aboriginal-Loyalist band against the rebels during the American Revolution, Brant figured he had a unique perspective to offer." Today however, Rob's reputation is as a leading mergers and acquisitions and capital markets specialist, advising both Canadian and European clients.

Rob is also Chair of the Maple Leaf Trust, which supports Canadian veterans and graduate students living in the UK through the grants and scholarships programme of the Canadian Centennial Scholarship Fund. He is an active Director and a formerPresident of the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce and helped bring the Terry Fox Run (supporting cancer research) back to the UK last year after a 15-year absence.

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