Thank you for coming out on your Saturday to join & support a worthy cause : $10/a day childcare plan for BC. Thank you for your generosity of time, effort & spirit.

Today, we walk as ONE, stand as ONE, ONE united for ONE cause---Universal childcare.

Childcare is not a mother’s job or a father’s job alone. Childcare is not only the Early Learning Educator’s job. It is everyone’s business. It is everybody’s business. More so, it is government’s business. I You, We are all in this huge responsibility:

•       To free the children from poverty
•       To provide, maintain & sustain an accessible, affordable, high quality childcare that is publicly funded.
•       To raise a generation that the country can be proud of.

VANCOUVERITES, we feel proud that we ranked 5^th among the Best Cities in the world, the only North American City in the top 10. We boast of our mountains on one side & the sea on the other side. But can we truthfully & honestly say, we are proud of the current status of the children who are denied high quality childcare because it is prohibitive & beyond reach of minimum wage earners? Can the stunning beauty of Vancouver hide & erase the fact that our women are denied the opportunity to be active contributors in the economy---not that they are uneducated or lazy but because they have no choice but to stay home & take care of children.

VANCOUVER---Are you ready to fight for the rights of children, women & families?

Are you ready to make some noise so your voices could be heard?

Are you ready to put forward childcare in the right, left & center of every parliamentarian’s agenda? Of every political parties’ agenda?

Are you ready not only to be climate smart but more so CHILD CARE SMART?

Are you ready BC? Is it a resounding YES?

Then stand up for your right, let your voices be heard in every forum, in every ballot. Push for the $10 a day childcare plan. Push hard & Fight harder—

THERE IS NOTHING TO LOSE BUT THE CHAIN OF POVERTY & INEQUALITY.

Teresita Nidua is a Early Childhood Educator from Collingwood Neighbourhood House, Vancouver.