Our wonderful guest speakers for next week!

Joanne Price

I, Joanne Price, am an educator in “abeyance”: privileged to have had the opportunity to study and journey with many of the root-prints of this elusive word.

 Since beginning my PhD seven and a half years ago I have engaged with contemplative practices … acts of remembrance and creation through the world of walking and the world of dreaming. This journey led me to an amazing place in the territory of my own culture in mid Wales. An area of woodland known as bwlch or gap, situated between farmland and mountains, a kind of connecting place of the end points of human experience. 

I was taken, alone, on a move to one of the really dark backgrounds of our age. It was traumatic to learn about the losses that happen to forgotten peoples in our own homelands. Even on encountering many of my ancestors, especially creatives and lesbians who were not seduced into thinking they had to conform or escape, I felt tremendous loss. A loss of life, land, and language from realising that although we were raised to respect nature, we still weren’t aware of the power of relationships among people and places, spirits, trees, waters, wildlife, and wild plants. It was really tough because I encountered thinking that exacerbated climate change and directed violence toward others including the non-human and more-than-human worlds. 

And yet this journey is also teaching patience, to remain hopeful when the response is slower than it should be. To let go of the temptation to present lies and withdrawals, and stay still enough to encounter an enduring silence capable of ushering us closer to the wonder, wisdom, and infinite possibilities of the past. Moving us into an era of true stewardship because the wonderful thing is, the response is growing and all together it is going to be healing for Wales and Canada and the relationships with our only home. 

As a passionate advocate of life’s diversity, I am for the land and ancestors past, present, and future. I am for the protection of sacred places and their capacity to nourish the well-being of all those who feel different. We must learn to walk our own paths, have the courage to sing our own songs, and find the words to gift this world its fullest and richest meaning.

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Philip Kimani Karangu was born and raised in Kenya. Philip, a current first year PhD student at UBC completed his Master of Arts in Curriculum Studies at UBC in 2017. His research focused (and will continue) on improving education in refugee camps around the globe such as Dadaab in Kenya (world’s largest refugee camp). He completed his teaching certificate at Machakos Teachers Training College and his Bachelor of Education from Kenyatta University in 2013 (Kenya) with a focus in History and Kiswahili. Philip has taught in primary schools in Kenya and his last position was head teacher and Kiswahili teacher at a charity-run primary school.