Supporting the work of the Grandmothers Advocacy Network (GRAN), the Grassroot Grannies advocate through displays, speaking engagements, media, letter writing campaigns, and participating in organized advocacy events. We have signed petitions, spoken to our MPs and marched on Parliament Hill several times urging our federal government to keep their promises.
On this page of our website, we are now including the GRAN Updates on a quarterly basis.
GRAN Update March 2026
Advocating for grandmothers, vulnerable children and youth in Sub-Saharan Africa
Canadian grannies
supporting
African grannies
WASH Action Accelerates: It’s Time to Deliver!
Time to Deliver is a global advocacy campaign calling on world leaders to deliver clean water and safe healthcare for women and babies everywhere. Women, healthcare workers and allies across eighteen countries have begun raising our voices in support of the campaign launched this week by WaterAid International. GRAN is a part of this global effort.
The eighteen countries where advocacy activities have begun are: Cambodia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Australia, Germany, Japan, Scotland, Sweden, UK, USA, and Canada. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness of lack of water in healthcare facilities and create a groundswell of public support for action that world leaders will not be able to ignore.
Wateraid Poster appearing in the HIll Times. March 18th.
WaterAid Canada has taken out a full-page ad in the March 18 issue of The Hill Times to draw the attention of politicians and decision-makers to issues around gender and WASH. WaterAid has generously included our GRAN logo in their ad to highlight our partnership in this campaign. See poster at the bottom of this page.
2026 is an important year for WASH with a UN Water Conference taking place in December where world leaders will assess progress on SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), identify implementation gaps, and explore strategies for accelerating action. Participation at the Conference will include governments, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, Indigenous Peoples, the private sector, and international financial institutions. GRAN will be partnering with WaterAid Canada throughout this year to build public support to pressure world leaders to take action to deliver clean water and safe healthcare for women and babies everywhere. Together we can make the lack of WASH in healthcare impossible for world leaders to ignore. It's time to deliver clean water for every woman, every birth.
Anyone interested in joining the WASH Campaign Team, our door is open! Please contact Gail Mullan to find out more. Click here to send a message.
Victoria GRANs Phyllis Webster,Liz Dill,and Anne Young
Golden Horseshoe GRAN Sandy Milakovic
GV GRANs Gail Mullan, Kathleen Wallace-Deering, and Ginger Shaw with GRAN display at the Coquitlam Public Library
GRANs Raise Awareness on International Women’s Day!
GRAN member, Rae Yates, was one of the guest speakers at the Trenton, ON library’s celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD). She related her journey of becoming a below-the-knee amputee and linked it to the importance of WASH in healthcare settings for everyone everywhere, after having contacted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) in a clean, hygienic, and sanitized hospital.
Check out our Photo Gallery for more IWD photos, along with larger versions of the photos above.
GRAN member Rae Yates
Rural Education in sub-Saharan Africa: A Personal Story
by Phyllis Webster, member of GRAN’s Education Watch Group
My teaching career began in South Africa in 1965-1966 at the height of Apartheid when there were three levels of education for White, Black, and Coloured South Africans. Because I was white, I was required to teach in a white school but did spend one evening a week on the Cape Flats teaching Coloured adult students.
In 2000, I returned to teach in a small farm school where I gave lessons to students in the upper grades, although I also taught several younger grades when teachers were away. We had fun, even though my Afrikaans and their English were almost non-existent. The school infrastructure was very poor: one classroom had a hole in the floor caused by a fire pot burning through the floor, windows were often missing, the toilet structure for teachers was on the verge of collapse, and there was no electricity. Other than a twice-weekly delivery of bread, peanut butter, and an orange drink, the students did not eat during the school day.
The teachers had few resources but did their best to engage the students. They were often away for courses to improve their qualifications, hence the need for my help in the lower grades. Some of the younger teachers had only high school education. They were poorly paid and had second jobs to make ends meet; many had to hitchhike to get to the school on time. The disciplinary method at the school was corporal punishment, which troubled me greatly.
The only water source was a large tank in the courtyard. When I returned in 2017, conditions were much better because there was running water and electricity. There was a fence around the school which kept the nearby pigs and cows out of the yard and a hot lunch program, a source of great delight.
In 2017, I wrote a Reader’s Theatre play called “Climbing the Ladder to Success; Barriers to Education for Girls in sub-Saharan Africa” which describes the problems which remain in so many rural schools across sub-Saharan Africa. You can find it here. The Global Partnership for Education (GPE), is working to improve infrastructure and support for teachers in lower-income countries. I encourage you to read these two hopeful stories from the GPE’s work in Zimbabwe: Water access reshapes education for rural Zimbabwean pupils and Zimbabwe: Improving conditions to help teachers stay and thrive in rural schools.
Health Watch Group (Cathy Thompson (co-chair), Sandra Stec (co-chair), Diane Scaletta, Linda McFarlane, Sheila Pepper, Mary Spoke)
World Tuberculosis Day is Tuesday, March 24th. This year’s theme is ‘Yes! We can end TB!’ TB is preventable, treatable, and curable, yet it remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease.
Canada’s overall TB rate is low but continues to be found in Indigenous populations and among people experiencing homelessness. Contributing factors are overcrowded housing, poor ventilation, and geographical isolation.
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 25% of new global cases and over 33% of global cases. The primary cause of these high rates is co-infection with HIV. Challenges include lack of funding and diagnostic tools, and also TB that has become drug-resistant. It’s possible to get back on track by making investment in TB a strategic political choice, accelerating innovation to reach people faster, and protecting essential TB services which already exist. Ending TB will strengthen health systems and global health security. Learn more by reading the World Health Organization’s Global Tuberculosis Report 2025.
The campaign launched with this global petition targeting world leaders, a powerful 3-minute video featuring women from Cambodia, Liberia and Malawi, and a new report, Born Without Water: The Crisis in Our Delivery Rooms. We encourage you to sign the petition, watch the video, and read the report. We also hope that you will find ways to raise awareness among your social circles and community contacts and invite others to take action too.
Mining Justice Watch Group (Liz Dill, Anne Young, Diane Scaletta, Gaye Francis Alexander, Phyllis Webster, JoAnn Mulhern)
Prime Minister Mark Carney has launched Canada’s first Defence Industrial Strategy, tying domestic defence capacity to the supply of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. While the plan promises jobs and stronger supply chains, it also signals growing pressure to expand mining in British Columbia and across Canada, raising questions about environmental oversight, Indigenous consent, and who truly benefits from the country’s mineral boom when the materials extracted can serve both batteries and military purposes.
We encourage you to watch the two webinars below, co-hosted by Mining Watch Canada and Above Ground. The growing global focus on prioritizing the exploration and extraction of minerals deemed of critical importance to economic security, defence, and an energy transition comes with many questions about human rights, including Indigenous rights and labour rights, environmental justice, and corporate accountability.
Webinar recording: Canada’s approach to critical minerals at home and abroad This webinar brought together panelists from civil society and government to discuss and critique Canada’s approach to critical minerals at home and abroad. As Canada’s investment in critical minerals exploration and extraction expands, it is necessary for civil society to understand the government’s plans as well as the potential harms that could result from them. Presentation slide deck available here.
Webinar recording: Indigenous Perspectives on the Global Critical Minerals Rush: This webinar featured five Indigenous speakers from around the world discussing global, regional, and local fights for justice related to the global push for critical minerals extraction. The panelists discussed specific harms and human rights violations they are facing and what civil society groups working on related issues should know.
Where is the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise?
Since 2018, GRAN’s Mining Justice Watch Group has been advocating for the appointment of an independent Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE). Its mandate is to review complaints about possible human rights abuses by Canadian companies when those companies work outside Canada in the garment, mining, and oil and gas sectors. Despite no action to date, our efforts continue.
While climate impacts are accelerating and public concern remains high, conversations regarding climate have diminished, especially among our political leaders. The strongest predictor of climate action is whether people talk about climate change. Climate Silence doesn’t mean people don’t care; it often means people are uncertain that others share their views and uncertain that it is safe to talk about climate with family, friends, and neighbours.
Climate silence is also:
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Politicians ignoring the real and growing threat of the climate crisis;
Politicians ignoring the real and growing threat of the climate crisis;•Media not connecting their reporting to the impacts of climate change;
Media not connecting their reporting to the impacts of climate change;•Disinformation being used to promote fossil fuels and suppress clean energy solutions.
Disinformation being used to promote fossil fuels and suppress clean energy solutions.Climate SILENCE is a Serious Issue!
Conversations and visibility of the issue can change that. Seniors can make a difference. We are trusted, civically engaged, and we vote. It is not about getting louder, but about making our concern visible.
Seniors for Climate is a national organization focused on building a safe, just, and livable future for all by engaging seniors in climate action. Many GRAN groups have participated in Seniors for Climate rallies and learning events in recent years. Their 2026 campaign aims to rekindle the conversation around climate and to break through the Climate Silence.
Check out the Seniors for Climate website to stay abreast of climate action in 2026. Consider signing their climate pledge, and view their recent webinar, Where Do We Go Next? A Climate Conversation with Steven Guilbeault. We will keep you up to date as the Break Through the Climate Silence campaign unfolds.
At a time of seemingly intractable conflicts and entrenched patriarchal leadership that too often refuses to pursue courageous paths to peace, women’s leadership must shape the way forward. Our voices matter. Our actions matter. And together we carry the promise of a more peaceful world. -- Graça Machel, Co-founder of The Elders
