The Boys and Girls Club has now officially rebranded to be BGC Canada. The name change was not made to have a “shorter and catchier” title but to reflect the inclusivity that the organization strives to have, especially for LGBTQ2S+ youth.
Removing gender from their name was an important step for the organization to keep up with their agenda of being open to all children and youth of all backgrounds and identities.
“At BGC Okanagan you will often hear the saying ‘opportunity changes everything.’ Our prior use of Boys and Girls Clubs may have left individuals feeling like they did not have equal access to those opportunities,” BGC Okanagan CEO Jeremy Welder said. “We now have a name that better represents the work we do in our community to remove barriers, and provide all children, youth and families with a place of belonging.”
Welder also explained that the organization sat down to reconsider whether their name was inclusive to all kids and youth in the many communities that they serve, when they decided to change it.
The name change was a year-long process. The organization consulted with communities across the country including having conversations with LGBTQ2S+ community members, stakeholders, youth and club leadership from across the country.
Welder explained that the organization has gone through this kind of rebranding before, switching the name from The Boys Club to The Boys and Girls Club back in 1974.
The recent rebranding now is a way for the organization to send a message to children and youth that are non-binary, transgender or gender fluid, that BGC Okangan is welcoming to them.
“It was just really important for us, as a movement and locally, to try to make that shift to show that we are inclusive to all people, regardless of how they identify,” said Welder.
“I think that being one of the largest child-serving organizations in Canada, for us, it’s really important to make sure that we’re recognizing that these are really important developmental years in people’s lives when they’re children and youth. And so we want to make sure that the services and programs in place that they’re interacting with represent that we are open and inclusive to everyone.”
BGC Okanagan is getting ready to bring back a number of programs for the region, as the pandemic restrictions start to lift slowly.
In the South Okanagan, the youth programs will start once again in the community centres.
“It’s been a very difficult year, we’ve maintained most of our services, but for us, in the South Okanagan, a lot of them are dependent on being in other people’s spaces, and some of those spaces haven’t been available. So we’re excited for those to reopen. And we’re excited for the better weather coming because some of the stuff that we can do, we can do more of it outside,” said Welder.
