The Radical Labour of Care
As part of George Brown Polytechnic's Labour Fair (external link) , the Office of Social Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University presents a special Transformation Cafe titled The Radical Labour of Care.
How can we reimagine the systems that continue to fail the city’s most vulnerable people through radical approaches to care? In an increasingly hostile and unaffordable city where housing, healthcare, and other basic needs are increasingly inaccessible, this Transformation Café explores the everyday/night labour of care work through decolonial and intersectional feminist perspectives.
Featuring Claire Dion Fletcher, an Indigenous midwife, leader, and educator, Lorraine Lam, a crisis outreach worker, case manager, and advocate in Toronto’s Downtown East, and Grissel Orellana, the Program Director of the Latinx Womyn’s Program at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, this conversation will examine how panelists intervene in state cruelty by identifying the gaps and harms within systems that claim to provide care while also building practices of mutual aid, community safety, and collective survival.
By focusing on labour practices that centre people who are directly affected by crisis, this Café invites participants to imagine what an affordable and equitable city could look like when it invests in sensible drug policy, harm reduction, and housing justice; when it supports survivor-led sexual violence services without forcing them into chronic precarity; and when it advances Indigenous sovereignty in healthcare. We will share what is already working, what solidarities we need to sustain communities, and how care - as labour and as worldbuilding - can be a pathway to building a livable city.
When: Tuesday, March 24th, 2026
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Where: 200 King St. E., George Brown Polytechnic, St James Campus, Room SJA 455E
Access: ASL interpretation. This is a mask-mandatory event. Please wear a mask when not eating; surgical masks will be available. For questions about access, please email eliza.chandler@torontomu.ca
Registration: This event is free and open to the public. To register please visit:
Speakers
Claire Dion Fletcher (she/her) is a Lenape- Potawatomi and mixed settler Registered Midwife. Claire is current Vice-President of the Canadian Association of Midwives and past Co-Chair of the National Council of Indigenous Midwives. She is an Assistant Professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University Midwifery Education Program. Her teaching focuses on Indigenous midwifery and social justice issues. Claire is deeply committed to increasing diversity in the midwifery profession through Indigenous-led education. She completed her Master of Arts in Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies at York University where her research focused on decolonized health care and Indigenous midwifery. Claire is committed to reproductive justice and Indigenous feminisms and how these frameworks shape midwifery education and practice. She is an adoring Auntie to her niece and nephews, and a new mother.
Lorraine Lam (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian daughter of a solo parent, with an education in music, sociology and social work. For over a decade, she has worked in Toronto’s Downtown East, walking alongside community members navigating homelessness, drug use, incarceration, poverty, racism, and systemic injustice. Her work is shaped by these communities that have taught her to centre harm reduction, anti-oppression, and trauma-informed practices. She is currently a caseworker at Amadeusz, supporting individuals with firearms-related charges, and she serves on the board of Building Roots and organizes with Christians for a Free Palestine: Toronto and Shelter & Housing Justice Network. Lorraine also co-authored a chapter in Displacement City (University of Toronto Press, 2022) She loves Jurassic Park movies, singing with her gospel choir, and exploring the city with her extroverted fur child, Miso. Find her at www.lorrainelam.me (external link) , IG: @lorrainelamchops, X: @lorrainelamchop, Bluesky: @ lorrainelamchops.bsky.social and Tiktok: @lorrainelamchops.
Grissel Orellana (she/they) is from El Salvador, Central America and lives in Tkaronto/Toronto. She identifies as Indigenous, from Mestiza ancestry. Grissel is a feminist, a human rights activist/defender, a lesbian femme, a mother, a healer, and a survivor of war and gender-based violence. Grissel has worked at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape for 26 years. She is currently a Program Director of the Latinx Womyn Program at the Centre, where she continues to triumph for a diversity of Latin American survivors. This program is a space for support, personal growth, collective development and dialogue about our role as Latinx immigrants, political refugees, and survivors of multiple abuse and human rights violations, here in Toronto, Canada. In her work at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, Grissel is part of a collective that advocates for liberation from all forms of violence.