Calendar helping build women leaders of tomorrow

University students from all across Canada have brought together 12 internationally renowned athletes and created a calendar.

The Antigone Foundation is a Canadian organization that works to support young women's involvement in leadership, politics, activism and feminism.

The 2010 Dreams for Women calendar was created in an effort to use the power of female athletes in order to raise money for young women's leadership training in Canada, with regards to making a lasting impression from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

“The Dreams for Women project began in 2008 when The Antigone Foundation put out a call for people to submit their Dreams for Women on postcards,” said Amanda Reaume, executive director at the Antigone Foundation. “We received submissions from all over the world as far away as Germany, France, Bulgaria, Japan and Brazil. We are based out of Vancouver so we thought it would be interesting to try to engage Olympic athletes for our 2010 calendar and ask them to make postcards with their Dreams for Women on them. The results were astounding, as a number of fabulous Canadian and U.S. athletes made amazing postcards and sent them to our organization to include in our calendar.”

The foundation wanted to do something special to commemorate the historic 2010 year and to honour Canadian and U.S. female athletes. The foundation teamed up with university-aged women to help bring 2010 athletes together for a cause as important as this one.

calendar athletes

The athletes featured in the calendar include the following women:

Rachel Armstrong, Canadian women's volleyball;
Julia Clukey, U.S. women's luge;
Erin Hamlin U.S. women's luge;
First Nations snowboard team;
Kirsten Manley-Casimir, Canadian women's volleyball;
Cathy Priestmer Allinger, Canadian women's speed skating;
Sara Renner, Canadian women's cross country;
Michelle Roark, U.S. women's freestyle skiing;
Angela Ruggiero, U.S. women's hockey;
Robbi Weldon, Canadian women's para-nordic skiing;
Ashley Wagner, U.S. women's figure skating;
Katie Willis, women's ski jumpers;

The money raised from calendar sales will be used to fund Dreams for Women Scholarship for young women leaders, as well as a cross- Canada leadership whistle stop tour, which will stop in at least five Canadian cities and provide leadership training to girls and to young women.

“The money will go to a student who is interested in working to help young women attain leadership positions in our society. We will also use the money to fund a Cross-Canada Dreams for Women Leadership Tour in which we will go to a number of communities and provide leadership training to young women and girls,” said Reaume.

The calendars will also be used to help raise money for other organizations. They'll be sold at a discounted price for $10 Canadian to non-profit women's organizations who will benefit by using them for their own organizations.

“It is important for young women to know that they can be leaders and to recognize that they have the potential to change the world in business, politics, or activism,” Reaume said.

The main project of the organization is to publish Antigone magazine, a publication about women and politics that started at University of British Columbia and has since expanded to a national subscription base, as well as, to the University of Toronto.

The calendar will be sold for $20 Canadian and is available via the Antigone Foundation blog at antigonefoundation.wordpress. com or by emailing antigonemagazine@hotmail.com