CMWH Founding Board of Directors

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Arlene Hache, a person who has experienced homelessness is well known across the Northwest Territories and Nunavut as an advocate for social change. As a result of her work in the North, Arlene was awarded the Order of Canada in 2009 and then the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Arlene has participated on several research teams and is a published author. Arlene was a founder and the Executive Director of Centre for Northern Families for 25 years. The Centre offered a broad range of services including an emergency shelter for women who were homeless, a poverty law program, a family support program with prenatal and toddler components, childcare services, assessment and case management services and third party intervention and child supervision services for families impacted by violence.      

Arlene actively participated in the development, implementation and evaluation of every program offered at the Centre. She designed a family support delivery model and training curriculum that helps families strengthen and negotiate internal and external inter-personal relationships in a way that promotes healthy interdependence. In a partnership with the YWCA, she co-developed and co-managed a gender specific trauma recovery program for First Nations, Inuit and Metis women who were impacted by colonization, systemic oppression and extreme levels of violence. Both staff from the Centre for Northern Families and staff from the YWCA delivered the trauma recovery program so a high degree of negotiation, cooperation and communication was required to ensure its success.

Dr. Darlene Clover is a professor of Leadership Studies and Adult Education at the University of Victoria, BC and a feminist researcher and activist. She began her career working for the International Council of Adult Education (ICAE), Canada’s second largest international non-governmental organisation that was headquartered in Toronto. Different to many other global organisations, the ethos of the ICAE was that the experts with the knowledge and skills were the adult educators working on the ground in their own countries and regions. The ICAE did not send Canadians abroad but rather, operated as a place of encounter, a place that brought together adult educators from across the globe to debate issues and share strategies.

For over 16 years, Darlene’s research and educational work have been centred in museums (art, history, women’s) and other arts and cultural institutions including libraries and heritage sites. She explores museums through anti-racist, decolonising and feminist lenses – paying attention to their visuals, languages and stagecrafting practices. This includes working closely with museums to make changes and the development of the feminist museum hack, a pedagogically tool her Master and PhD students use to see beyond what these institutions are teaching them see. Darlene’s work also focuses on museum exhibitions as storytellers, and she has co-curated three exhibitions of women’s stories and lives. 

For 10 years, Darlene was Co-President of the Board of a woman’s heritage site in Victoria, B.C, using this as a base for conferences on women and power and arts-based workshops. She works with International Association of Women’s Museums (IAWM) as a member of the Research Committee. Darlene has co-published special editions of academic journals, chapters and books with IAWM’s members and produced two videos to give visibility to their work. She has also organised several global gatherings to bring IAWM members together with feminists working in mainstream museums.