Thank you very much for your question.
I am Blandine Ngoga Tona.
Yes, there were a lot of cuts to the funding for women’s groups. Right now, only five of the 12 groups we represent receive funding. As for the others, volunteers do the work for two reasons. First, most of the time, we are told that funding women's groups is not necessary. Second, we are told to contact Status of Women Canada.
However, generally, you need a project to do so. For us to develop projects, we would need to have at least one employee to just do the preliminary work to gather the necessary material. If we don’t even have core funding, how can we bring together women and assess how we are going to develop a project that specifically addresses their needs?
At the end of the day, it's counterproductive if we don't even receive the core funding .