Nanaimo is a medium-size city on Vancouver Island off the west coast of British Columbia.
The name is derived from the Coast Salish, Snuneymuxw, or “a place to meet.”
Our Wilpf Nanaimo branch began in 2002.
We are a women’s peace group and meet regularly once a month.
We welcome you to meet with us
on the 2nd Monday of the month
at 10am— Nanaimo Harbourfront Library (Downtown).
If the 2nd Monday is a holiday we meet the next Monday.
- Being a small group, we have learned to take on only what we know we can follow through with. We take on tasks that support the ideals of WILPF but have short time frames.
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We have also learned that it is important to work with other like-minded groups. Our greatest success is in keeping the name of WILPF out there.
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This is primarily due to members who will set up a table whenever we are invited somewhere, bake muffins to sell and pass out WILPF information.
The event we put the most energy into is our annual Hiroshima Lantern ceremony on August 6th . Held on our waterfront.
We begin by writing to Nanaimo City Council asking the Mayor to declare August 6th Hiroshima Day in Nanaimo and invite the city to attend. The Council votes to do this and so the invitation is televised at the regular council meeting where they vote.
- We always had a statement from our local MP Jean Crowder and she attended when she could. More recently our MP Sheila Malcolmson attended in 2017.
- Our MLA Leonard Krog also attends and speaks every year.
- Our mayor has attended in recent years and speaks on behalf of the city. We often have speakers who are visiting in the area from Japan.
- We have had Japanese folk dances as part of the program, a large dove puppet which people carried around the waterfront all evening, and one year we released live doves at a certain point in the evening.
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Early in July we host lantern-making workshops in preparation for the event. Since the lanterns are attached together, it takes thirty-five people walking together very slowly and lowering them into the water at just the right time.
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A kayak pulls them around the lagoon. Then it takes all these people acting in tandem to get them back out.
We have been doing this every year for the past twelve years.
- There is often very good press and coloured pictures in the papers each year so even if people don’t get to attend, they hear about it.
- We invite a community choir to perform at the ceremony so we are guaranteed at least forty people from that group alone. Usually we have about 200 people attend.
Some recent pictures–Autumn 2017
Letter Writing –for Canadian Government to vote for nuclear disarmament.
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