Resilience, change and remembering 'whose shoulders we're standing on' celebrated at Hamilton women's awards
CBC
Fifty years ago in 1976, Norma Berti was the first to be recognized as Hamilton’s Woman of the Year.
Her story as the first woman steelworker in Canada to be elected to her local union executive set the tone for a night of celebrating the achievements of women in Hamilton at the 50th YWCA Women of Distinction Awards.
"I wanted to share this photo of Norma because sometimes we don't always know whose shoulders we're standing on," said YWCA Hamilton chief executive officer Medora Uppal, while displaying Berti's picture on the screen.
"But tonight is about remembering and honouring the women who helped build the path forward."
Uppal highlighted in her speech the importance of recognizing and celebrating women's contributions.
"For generations, women have strengthened our communities, they've built businesses, they've led movements, created art, advanced science, nurtured families and challenged systems," she said.
"Too often that work happened quietly and without recognition."
The gala, which aims to honour "women and girls whose leadership and impact create lasting change in Hamilton and Halton," according to the YWCA website, took place on Thursday at the Hamilton Convention Centre.
Mayors of Hamilton and Burlington, Ont., Andrea Horwath and Marianne Meed Ward, gave a joint speech acknowledging previous recipients of the award in the audience. Horwath herself received the award in 1997.
Nine women received awards for their work in the Hamilton and Halton communities, including Kim Ritchie, who was the recipient of the Community Champion Award.
"Tonight marks 50 years the YWCA at Hamilton has been honouring women, a beautiful legacy of feminist existence," she told the gathering of around 1,100 people in her speech
"But for 15 of those years, I wasn't in rooms like this. I was on the streets of the city using drugs and surviving chronic homelessness."
She said she set out to challenge those systems when she met her friend and collaborator, Rebecca Morris-Miller, who co-founded the National Overdose Response Service (NORS) with Ritchie.
Ritche said NORS has supervised over 20,000 calls and saved hundreds in Canada from drug abuse.
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