National Advocacy. Community Action.

One in seven Canadian women live in poverty. The risk of poverty is greatest if you are an aboriginal woman, recent newcomer woman, racialized woman, or single mother. We know that women’s lower earning power means that they are at greater risk of falling into poverty if they have children, become separated, divorced, or widowed. When women are poor, their children suffer.

There are hundreds of women and children in Halifax who remain severely disadvantaged and without the necessity of a safe home. Despite over 100 years of progress toward women’s equality, recent decades have seen a tragic and needless rise in women’s homelessness across Canada. Single parent families, mostly led by women, make up the majority of homeless families.

YWCA Halifax is proud to provide quality early learning and childcare through our two licensed centres, our many family home childcares, and our before and after school programs in (soon-to-be) two schools in Spryfield.    Early learning and childcare are important for women’s equality and financial security, for children’s wellbeing and development, for the economic strength of our communities, and, when universally accessible, to building more equitable communities.