Rose Campaign Launch
Join YWCA Edmonton as we launch the 2026 Rose Campaign with a powerful fireside chat exploring digital violence — also known as technology-facilitated violence — one of the fastest-growing forms of gender-based violence today.
From online harassment and image-based abuse to emerging threats involving digital manipulation, technology-facilitated violence is having real and lasting impacts on women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals. As technology evolves, so does the need for awareness, prevention, and support.
Hosted by award-winning local broadcaster and friend Stacey Brotzel, this engaging conversation will bring together experts to discuss:
- What digital violence is
- How it affects individuals and communities
- The importance of early prevention in youth and survivor support
- Practical ways to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe in an evolving digital world
- How supporting YWCA Edmonton can help create safer, more respectful spaces — both online and offline.
Featured speakers include:
Brandi Morin, Indigenous Journalist, Author and Filmmaker
Alexandra Ages, Policy Specialist, Writer, and Activist
Nicolette Little, Critical Media Studies Researcher and Author of From Red Dresses to Memory Stones
Guests are invited to arrive early to connect with fellow community members, partners, donors, and advocates during an appetizer reception before the formal program. Enjoy refreshments, network, and engage in meaningful conversations with others who are committed to ending gender-based violence and creating safer communities.
Be part of an important community conversation and learn how we can work together to prevent violence, support survivors, and build a future where everyone can connect, learn, work, and live free from violence.
YWCA Edmonton’s Rose Campaign aligns with the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, an annual international campaign that runs from November 25 to December 10. A resounding call to action against gender-based violence, the campaign invites us to unite, raise our voices, and rekindle our resolute commitment to ending violence against women, girls, and gender-diverse people.
About the Speakers
Stacey Brotzel | Emcee & Moderator
Stacey Brotzel was a familiar face on Edmonton televisions for more than 30 years. Now, she has turned her talents to radio and can be heard every morning on the station she grew up listening to: 880 CHED. The award-winning broadcaster loves to engage in stimulating conversations. She took a boat down someone’s street while covering Winnipeg’s Flood of the Century., and packed gas masks in her coverage of the G8 in Kananaskis. She has interviewed Prime Ministers and Premiers, chatted with Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards, pop star Tiffany, and even made M.A.S.H. star Alan Alda laugh. Stacey was also the host of the YWCA Edmonton podcast Searching for Izena, introducing listeners to the female trailblazers at Edmonton City Hall. She loves chocolate and hates coffee, but tea gets her through those 3 a.m. alarms for her gig as host of This Morning with Stacey Brotzel on 880 CHED.
Brandi Morin | Indigenous Journalist, Author & Filmmaker
Brandi Morin is an award-winning Cree, Iroquois and French journalist, author, and filmmaker from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta, Canada. For more than a decade, she has amplified Indigenous voices and reported on human rights, environmental justice, and Indigenous issues across North and South America. A survivor of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis, she brings lived experience and empathy to her work. Her reporting has appeared in leading outlets including National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, BBC and Al Jazeera English. Brandi has received numerous honours, including awards from the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada, Amnesty International Canada, the Indigenous Journalists Association, and the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Her bestselling memoir, Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising, won Memoir of the Year at the 2023 Alberta Literary Awards. Known for fearless, impactful storytelling, Brandi continues to investigate issues affecting Indigenous communities throughout the Americas.
Alexandra Ages | Policy Specialist, Writer & Activist
Alexandra Ages is a policy specialist and feminist writer whose work focuses on gender-based violence and structural inequality. With a Master of Public Policy, she brings a trauma-informed, intersectional lens to public systems and advocates for policies that challenge patriarchal norms and empower marginalized communities. Her writing appears in Policy Options, The Tyee, and the Broadbent Institute’s Perspectives Journal. From economic abuse to algorithmic misogyny, Alexandra’s work examines how institutional structures perpetuate harm, and how such structures can be transformed. A YWCA Edmonton 2025 Woman of Distinction, she also has served on the national board of directors for the Ending Sexual Violence Association of Canada and is an advisor with the Canadian Poverty Institute. Her chapter on feminist criminology and gender-based violence, “From Private Violence to Public Victims: Femicide, Attempted Femicide, and Mass Attacks in Canada” will be published in the upcoming anthology Murder in the Media: Portrayals of Femicide and Familicide this winter.
Nicolette Little | Critical Media Studies Researcher & Author
Dr. Nicolette Little is a multiple federally awarded critical media studies researcher whose work explores media activism to address gender-based violence (GBV), technology-facilitated violence, and algorithmic and automated abuse. She advises the Canadian federal government, media, policing services, and not-for-profits regarding media and GBV — and has stepped in to advise during moments of national crisis, including in the aftermath of the so-called “Toronto Van Attack.” Among her multiple publications is her new book, From Red Dresses to Memory Stones: Multimedia Activism and Gender-Based Violence in Canada, which came out in June 2026, with the University of British Columbia Press. Dr. Little has long taught with the University of Alberta’s Media and Technology Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies Programs, and also recently served as director of the U of A’s Feminist Collaboratory and Data Visualization Centre. She recently joined McGill University for a time, to complete additional research on social media interventions in dating violence.