Mother Matter Centre 20th Anniversary Event Background:
The Mothers Matter Centre’s 20th Anniversary Celebration and presentation of its annual Because Mothers Matter Awards will take place, virtually, on October 21, 2020.
This year, the MMC, proud home of the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program, celebrates 20 years of changing lives in Canada. It is a journey of 20,000 low-income newcomer, refugee, Indigenous and other Canadian mothers who have overcome unique educational, linguistic, and cultural barriers and who share courage, determination, and resilience.
The event will include the story of the MMC as well as the Because Mothers Matter Awards. To mark this important milestone, the MMC sought the guidance of Indigenous supporters and champions to provide advice on ways to pay respect an recognize the organization’s two decades of outstanding work.
As a result, Indigenous partners have graciously agreed to guide the MMC in a traditional blanketing ceremony at the event to honour accomplished mothers’ exceptional community work.
The MMC 20th Anniversary Celebration is sponsored by Port of Vancouver. The event’s exclusive media partner is CBC, with MC Gloria Macarenko.
- Their programs are designed to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, low literacy, and social isolation.
- Their foundational program, Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), was piloted in 2000 at the Britannia Community Service Centre in Vancouver, BC, HIPPY. Since then, it has grown to 25 sites across Canada each of which helps 35 – 100 families each year.
- Bond to Literacy is a 12-week early literacy program adapted from the HIPPY program for low-income, disadvantaged families who struggle with issues that may prevent them from making a long-term commitment.
- The Adopt-a-Reader campaign provides an opportunity for HIPPY families to “adopt” other parents in their community for a three-week campaign that focuses on parent-child bonding through reading.
- Our Newcomer Innovations are designed to help immigrant families settle into Canadian society. The Mothers Matter Centre and its partners’ research, design, test and evaluate the feasibility of social innovations to ensure the well-being, dignity, and social connections of high-risk vulnerable mothers.
