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Gay Post November 21, 2017

Remembering lives lost due to anti-transgender violence

Transgender Remembrance was marked on Nov 20, a day in which to reflect on the 325 transgender people around the world who have lost their lives between Oct 2016 and Sept 30 of this year.

Statistics Canada tracks the number of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, and in 2014 there were 155 reported cases and in 2015 there were 141 instances. This number is alarmingly high, as most transgender people suffer in silence when dealing with hate related issues.

From people using the right pronouns to challenges in school and healthcare, transgender youth face a large number of challenges. In a national survey in 2015, over one-third of transgender Canadians between ages 14-25 attempted suicide. Transgender Remembrance Day does not normally count the number of deaths by suicide ,but if it did, the number in remembrance would be even higher.

Transgender Remembrance is all about reflecting on an often bullied and low profile community. During different remembrance ceremonies around the world, the names of those who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence are marked. Members of the trans community all pay respect and come out to attend this somber occasion.

Transrespect.org issued the full list this year of all the names of people around the world who have lost their lives. The list is a report of all transphobia issues and murders worldwide. There was one Canadian listed, Sisi Thibert, a transgender sex worker who was found stabbed in her apartment in Montreal just a mere two months ago.

Many trans-advocates do not just honour all those who have lost their lives, but as well victims and survivors of transgender targeted violence. Transgender remembrance started in 1999 in the United States by a transgender woman to mark the murder of another victim. During the reading of the names, there is often a moment of silence and a candlelight vigil. In Canada, there was a memorial held at the University of Winnipeg on Monday evening with over 100 people in attendance, and at Toronto Police Headquarters in downtown Toronto, Toronto police raised the transgender flag for the first time to mark Transgender Remembrance Day.

What's Hot March 23, 2017

Woman of the Week: Sara L. Austin

Sara L. Austin has had a sweeping impact on children’s rights worldwide and has dedicated her life to helping kids. She is the founder and CEO of Children’s First Canada, a non-profit that focuses on educating the public and holding the government accountable regarding their policies on child poverty.

“People often ask me how I got started with this, I’ve worked with thousands of kids. I was a summer camp counsellor in Ontario and responsible to look after five or six year old kids. One of the kids told me she had been sexually abused by her stepfather and didn’t want to go home,” Austin said. “We called Children Aid’s Society and when they finally arrived, she held onto me. I had to let go and trust that we have a system that protects kids. I learned very early in life that lots of kids don’t get the start in life that they deserve. Whether as a parent or a citizen, we need to give children our very best.”

Austin launched Children’s First Canada in November 2016. “There is an idea that kids in Canada have the jackpot of life. Research shows though that we have millions of kids that are falling through the gaps. There are a lot of mental issues, and several children have experienced abuse or neglect,” Austin said. “We haven’t achieved any significant progress in child poverty over the past two decades so we are trying to build public awareness for change.”

Child poverty affects one in five children in Canada and one in three Canadian children have experienced abuse. One of the pillars of Children’s First Canada is to accomplish widespread public awareness and to have a significant impact on the media in educating people on the relevance of child poverty. “We are doing after-school programs or mentoring. We are bringing these organizations together to jointly advocate together and to bring forward solutions that are evidence based,” Austin said. “It is a combination of policy influence and advocacy to make a difference for children.”

Austin launched the non-profit in Calgary, motivated by the Children First Act, a provincial law in Alberta that protects children and is one of the strongest child protection acts in Canada. Her hope was to inspire the rest of the country to follow suit. “I was inspired by the social innovation in the city of Calgary and the province of collective impact as well as the role of the private sector,” Austin said.

Previously, Austin worked at World Vision and held a number of positions including Director of the President’s Office and Policy Advisor for Child Rights and HIV/AIDS at World Vision Canada, Senior Advisor for Child Rights at World Vision International, and Manager of Operations at World Vision Thailand. “I started researching children in South East Asia and I was directly interacting with children in prostitution and brutal child labour,” Austin said. “We can’t treat children as objects, they are experts in their own lives. They have their own views on how things can get better. It has been a consistent thread throughout my career.”

One of Austin’s proudest achievements was creating the ‘Optional Protocol’, an international UN law that allows a child, or an NGO, to act on behalf of the child to launch a complaint if their human rights aren’t being protected through international law. The protocol was passed in 2014. “The law had been discussed for children for decades, but it hadn’t been developed. That was what prompted me to do my master’s degree at Oxford University,” Austin said. “It was a bittersweet moment, but at the same time the Canadian government didn’t support it and still hasn’t signed onto the protocol. The new government has pledged to sign onto the protocol and we are following the government to hold them accountable.”

Along with helping children, Austin is also a huge advocate for women. She won the Women’s Executive Network (WXN) top 100 award in 2010 and also sits on the advisory board for the organization. “WXN celebrates women leaders across the country and their motto is ‘We inspire smart women to lead’,” Austin said. “They celebrate women from all walks of life. They provide mentorship opportunities as well.”

When Austin is taking a break from work, she loves to go skiing with her family and be out in nature. She also enjoys biking and hiking in Calgary. “Having a family keeps me grounded every day. I flew home and it was nice to come home to my own son and be reminded everyday how lucky I am to provide for and care for my own son,” Austin said.

Austin is a leader for advocacy relating to children and she teaches us how to stick up for the people who need us most. Her life-changing impact on an international and national level makes Canada a better place for kids to live in and gives public awareness to the fact that child poverty still exists today.

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Women of the Week January 11, 2017

Woman of the Week: Ingrid Thompson

Ingrid Thompson combines the practical love of science with passion for the environment. As the newly anointed Chief Executive Officer at Pollution Probe, one of the oldest environmental charities in Canada, she brings over 20 years of real-world experience into the boardroom.

“One of my quirks is I have a certain amount of appreciation for the geekiness of science and the complexity of information,” Thompson says. “Energy is very important for building the type of societies we want, but if you sacrifice the environmental part, we aren’t getting very far ahead.”

Thompson began her career as press secretary to the Minister of the Environment, Norm Sterling, in 1996. She briefly left to take on a role as a Senior Consultant for National Public Relations and returned in 2000 as Chief of Staff for the new Minister of the Environment, Dan Newman. During her tenure with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, she had to deal with the Walkerton E-Coli outbreak, one of the biggest environmental crises in Ontario’s history.

“It was one of the bigger crisis experiences. On the May long weekend, a bunch of people showed up at doctor’s offices complaining of intestinal issues,” Thompson says. “They were noticing that there was a cluster of sick people and that it could be an E.coli infection. Eventually it became clear that the water was the source of the infection. Six people died and thousands got seriously sick.”

Thompson was very involved with the Walkerton Crisis, calling water supply companies to bring clean water to residents and attending town hall meetings in Walkerton, among other things. She also helped the environmental minister reconfigure the water administration. Thompson said the experience was a test for the minister and his staff, who were elected into cabinet barely two months before the Walkerton catastrophe struck.

After 2001, Thompson became the Director of Communications and Marketing for a government relations group invested in energy, the environment and infrastructure law practice, and was a subsidiary of the law firm, CMS Cameron McKenna. From there, Thompson played a leading role in a cellphone company called Vodafone in Prague, and moved back to Canada briefly to do environmental consulting.

“I met a Dutch marine on the beach and that screwed up everything. I met my fiancé and decided to hit a reset button on my career.” Thompson took a job across the ocean as an Independent Consultant at Thompson Marcom in the Netherlands for the next six years. In October 2016, she returned to Canada and accepted the role as the Chief Executive Officer for Pollution Probe.

Thompson emphasizes that Pollution Probe takes a unique approach to environmentalism and works with oil companies and not against them. “We are a pragmatic, science-based company. We don’t take the view of putting all oil and gas companies in an automatic black hat and we choose not to do that,” Thompson says. “If you work directly for an environmental solution, we would rather work with companies than fight them. We work with a lot of companies, including Shell. They are pushing for the decarbonisation of the economy.”

After 20 years in the environmental and energy sectors and amassing an extensive amount of job experience, what does Thompson believe is the single most pressing environmental problem affecting the world today?

She didn’t skip a beat before responding, “Climate change.” Thompson explains it is imperative greenhouse gases be managed by finding credible and reasonable solutions through networking.

Supporting women in the environmental and energy sectors is also an issue close to Thompson’s heart. “Twenty years ago when I was a young consultant at a PR firm, I used to bring an older vice president along with meetings with me because my clients were unfortunately middle-aged white guys,” she says. “In order for me to be comfortable, I felt I needed to bring a ‘beard’ to my meetings. It is important to make a point of supporting strong smart women and connecting with them.”

Recently, the Pollution Probe Annual Gala ‘Generation Now’, focused on youth engagement and innovation in the environmental sector. The event also included awards that were given to two young women named , Eden Full Goh for creating a solar panel from a gravity powered clock, and Nivatha Balendra, for discovering a bacteria that can digest oil spills. “I was so thrilled to be able to support our awards program because it happened to result in two young women being the ones selected for incredibly impressive accomplishments,” Thompson says. “They were both incredibly intelligent and as women tend to do, they also had a sense of humility.”

In her spare time, Thompson enjoys knitting and scuba diving — things she finds to be meditative and peaceful. Pollution Probe has a bright future with the energy and environmental veteran who is leading the way towards the hopeful decarbonisation of the Canadian economy.

Living November 2, 2016

Is the government scared of an informed youth?

*UPDATE: Since the publication of this piece, Women’s Post has been contacted by Paris Semansky, Senior policy advisor to Premier Kathleen Wynne, via Twitter. She insists the provincial government is not considering cancelling civics classes and will be keeping it as a distinct mandatory course in high school. Women’s Post will be keeping this piece online as it does represent an important discussion about youth involvement in politics, but note this update as you read.

“Today’s youth are too apathetic and lazy. They don’t care about politics. They don’t understand how their own government works.”

I’m a millennial, and despite my intense interest in the news, my teachers and political leaders often told me that I was not doing enough. My generation, they said, was too apathetic. They didn’t vote, they didn’t get involved, and they simply didn’t care. And whose fault is that, they would ask? Entirely yours, they would say.

It’s been almost 10 years since I graduated high school, and those statements are still thrown in the face of young people across the country. It’s not a politician’s fault they can’t engage with youth, right? These kids spend too much time on Snapchat and not enough time reading the newspaper, ect. ect.

But then, after all of the nagging and the finger pointing, the Ontario government has the gall to consider cancelling civic classes.

Civic class represent a mandatory half credit in Ontario high schools, and is paired with a half-credit “careers” course. It teaches the basics — how our government works, how to vote, and what people’s rights are as a Canadian citizen. The careers course, on the other hand, essentially teaches kids to write a resume and not to chew gum during a job interview.

These are two integral and important classes, classes that should not under any circumstance be dismissed. In fact, I would argue that each course should be a full credit. Kids should be taught how to budget, file their taxes, and negotiate a sale. They should be taught how to submit a deposition to city council, hold a legal protest, and where to find information on the bills being discussed in question period. They should be taken to see question period!

And yet media sources report that the provincial government is considering removing these critical classes from the high school curriculum. How much do you want to bed that they will still blame kids for not understanding how their own government works?

The province has a right to be scared. Civics is breeding a new generation of informed citizens, kids who understand that they don’t vote for a leader of a party, despite what every political campaign tells them. These kids understand that most promises are smoke screens for hidden agendas. They get it! They ask questions. They are skeptical!

And that’s a scary thought. All of a sudden, MPPs have to focus their political capital on a generation they previously ignored. They have to pretend to care. Their career could depend on the vote of a single 18-year-old entering university for the first time.

No wonder the province doesn’t want to invest in informed citizens. An informed citizen is dangerous to the entire political system. An informed citizen will vote, take part in the discussion, and advocate for change!

It’s much better to just knick that pesky habit before it even develops.

What's Hot November 2, 2016

Woman of the Week: Jennifer Flanagan

Jennifer Flanagan, co-founder and CEO of the non-profit Actua, was exposed to science and technology at a young age, more so than other young girls in her class. Her father and uncle were both engineers, and as she says, “kids that grow up with engineers or scientists as parents are typically the ones that pursue it themselves.”

Flanagan’s plan was to go to medical school, combine her love of science and her affinity for helping people into one career. But, all that changed when she saw a poster on the wall asking the following question: Do you want to start a science or engineering camp? Her answer was a resounding yes.

That small group of students started up a few camps locally, but soon the model spread nationally among engineering programs at different universities. As of 1994, the camps had a policy for gender parity, with an equal 50 per cent divide between girl and boy participants. “That was unheard of,” Flanagan said. “It was controversial, amazing, and it worked.”

The programs became more popular, and eventually the students started to receive funding from university chairs and Industry Canada. And that’s how Actua was formed — a national charitable organization that engages young kids and marginalized communities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). “We [engage] about 225,000 youth a year – that includes a huge focus on those underrepresented audiences, or the hardest to reach audience in Canada,” Flanagan explained. This includes a program called InSTEM, a customized, community-based educational program that engages First Nations, Metis, and Inuit youth, as well as a digital literacy program that transforms young people from passive consumers into real innovators capable of using and creating future technology.

Twenty-five years later, Flanagan is just as excited about her role in Actua as she was when she saw that poster on the wall. She says she has seen progress since the program went national.

“Big evidence of that progress is Actua,” she said. “When I first started doing this work, we had to convince people it was important. A summer camp was one thing, but no one saw the link to the future work force or economic development.”

More woman are getting involved in certain science, like medicine for example, but Flanagan says there is still a void in research and in technology-based industries. “Whether its health-based research that’s skewed because no women were involved — it affects research outcome. It’s really important to have those voices at the table. And so, that starts really early. Talking to girls – telling them that they can do science and we NEED them in science. We need to make sure women are designing the world of the future.”

Flanagan is working with a team on a special project meant to celebrate Canada’s 150^th anniversary next year. Actua is building a “Maker Mobile”, a mobile workshop that will travel from one end of the country to the other in just over 18 months, stopping at schools and community centres along the way. “A maker space is a workshop that is filled with technology tools that allow you to build prototypes or allow you to build products,” Flanagan said. “We are celebrating past innovation by building skills for future innovation.”

The idea is to inspire young people to not only learn more about science and technology, but also to inspire them to innovate. The maker mobile will empower these young people and shift their attitudes. Too often, people tell kids to pay attention to math and science so they can do great things in the future, Flanagan explained. Instead, why not encourage them to do great things now?

“Today’s youth are incredible innovators already. They are amazing problem solvers and have natural abilities with science and technology.”

Flanagan’s passion often follows her outside of her work with Actua. She sits on the board of the Canadian Women’s Foundation, an organization that has a wide mandate, which includes empowering women, helping them escape violent situations, and ending poverty.

“The work with the Canadian Women’s Foundation is so fundamental — doing work that is creating the first generation of women free of violence requires more passion. The work that we do, engage girls in science and technology goes far beyond knowing there is enough female participation in these subjects. It’s about raising confidence.”

Flanagan is also a finalist for the Social Change Award for the 2016 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards. She is reading a newly released book called “Girl Positive”, which tells the story of hundreds of girls across North America and finds out what they need, something Flanagan says is critical reading for parents and policy makers.

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#TOpoli January 15, 2016

LGBTQ2S homeless youth shelter announces its arrival

The Sprott House is catering to a specific need — to provide a safe shelter for young people within the LGBTQ community. Unfortunately, there are not many shelters that offer these type of safe spaces, which is why Kate Miller, director of the YMCA Sprott House, was pleased to announce the new homeless youth shelter Thursday.

“Having a staff that has that experience with the LGBTQ community and having a place where help can accessed is essential,” she said.

The facility will provide 25 beds for Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transgender Queer Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) youth aged 16 to 25 who are in need of shelter and resources. Each individual will be granted housing for up to a year and will have access to counselling, health centre referrals, and education planning, in addition to a personal room and washroom.

“For the residents who live here, they have access to a full-time outreach counsellor as well as doing outreach with organizations that they want to be able to work with outside of the shelter,” said Miller.

Alex Abramovich is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and is specifically studying homelessness among LGBTQ2S youth in Toronto. He has been a great motivator for realizing that homeless LGBTQ2S youth require specialized resources and staff with particular training. Abramovich’s research was presented to city council in 2012 and resulted in the 2013 Street Needs Assessment, which analyzed the homeless demographics within the city.

The 2013 Street Needs assessment revealed that approximately 21 per cent of the street youth in Toronto identify as LGBTQ2S in Toronto, and that a significant part of the homeless demographic is aboriginal and two-spirited, a population that has been often ignored in past discourses and research.

Abramovich is a passionate advocate for homeless LGBTQ youth and the Sprott House. According to his research, homeless youth that identify as LGBTQ2S experience transphobia and homophobia within many youth shelters. This is exemplified when a transgendered person is called a liar because of the gender on their identification.

As well, young transgendered individuals require certain medications for hormones and gender therapy treatment and can resort to unapproved street hormones that cause devastating health effects. According to Abramovich’s study “No Safe Place to Go”, “the lack of specialized health care services for transgender youth often results in youth turning to unmonitored street suppliers for transition-related treatment (e.g. hormones, silicone injections), which can have severe health complications”.

This YMCA Sprott House also advocates on behalf of the aboriginal two-spirit (2S) community, which is often ignored in youth shelters.

“I’m part of the group advising different types of programs and the intake process,”Abramovich said. “It is absolutely critical that we include two-spirit youth as well. Two-spirited youth have been forgotten for so long. They are absolutely included in the program.”

The YMCA Sprott House will also provide avenues for further homeless LGBTQ2S research. Abramovich explained that he looks forward to working with the Sprott House to create a research study that assessed the suicidality and depression of the youth upon entering and exiting the shelter program. “This will allow provinces across the country to replicate the research model if it is successful,” Abramovich said.

Overwhelming support on behalf of the community and Toronto has been demonstrated for the LGBTQ2S youth housing project. Mayor John Tory was present at the announcement and said, “The neighbours came forward to say they wanted to help to make this happen, they wanted to make friends, they wanted to make partners and be real neighbours. That is the true spirit of Toronto. That is the true example of the values that motivate us in the city and what makes this city so great.”

The YMCA Sprott House is a leading example of the importance for more LGBTQ2S-focused housing projects across Canada. Currently, the LGBTQ RainCity Housing in Vancouver has 900 beds for homeless youth, but has dedicated a section of the shelter to the LGBTQ community. Aura Host Homes foster parent program in Calgary also has a program that matches LGBTQ kids to specific parents that are LGBTQ friendly. Hopefully, more programs will open as a result of the success of these new initiatives in Canadian urban centres.

“The YMCA Sprott House is absolutely critical to meet this population’s needs and to provide inclusive, affirming and safe spaces,” Abamovich said. “It sets an example for Canada. It makes it very clear that LGBTQ2S youth belong and are cared for and that they can be their full authentic selves. I have never felt more proud of our city than this morning.”

Women of the Week June 30, 2015

Donna Green: Founder and President of Stella’s Place

Last week, I sat down with Founder and President of a new mental health treatment assessment center for young adults. Donna Green, as quoted by the executive director of the organization, is ‘an inspiring visionary philanthropist who is leading the charge to change the landscape of mental health services with the many young adults we are working with.’ Her organization, called Stella’s Place is looking to launch early next year. Being a student myself, I knew I had to find out more from Donna about this unique initiative:

What is Stella’s Place?

Stella’s Place will be Canada’s first treatment and assessment centre for young adults with mental health issues. We are creating a hub that will be based in the community – the first location will be in Toronto’s downtown core –making this facility accessible and welcoming, which is different from the very few services that are offered today.

Another thing that makes Stella’s Place different from other facilities is that we are creating all our programs in partnership with young adults. We have a young adult council with more than 100 members. We are also working with professionals, and executed three years of research into what is available internationally so that we are able to draw on all the best practices while creating our program. But because our young adults have lived experience of the mental health system, nobody knows better than them what was really good, what was really bad, or what was really missing.

It is very important that we are based in the community, close to the subway line, which, again, is very different from going to a hospital or to an institution. What the research shows is that young adults who are not experiencing an emergency cannot even get into a hospital or institution. This is why we have designed a café storefront where you can come visit us. Behind this café is a full service of different treatments for kids struggling through various disorders.

Do you have any advice for those who are having trouble coming to terms with their mental health?

One of the things that our program has been very big on is peer support. We developed a Peer Support Training Program to train young people with lived experience to go out and actually speak with, or be available to, young adults who are not sure how to move forward or ask questions. When we complete our website, you will be able to go online to find support – we are not only going to have peer support workers but we’re developing an online platform for engagement. Then, as a young person, if you’re wondering how you feel, and what you should do, and where you should go, and how to ask questions, and who you can ask these questions to, you can get online to find help. Once we launch our online café, young adults will be able to speak to peer supporters, with lived experience, online and be part of a chat-line, but also find guidance to seek the clinical help you need.

What inspired you start this initiative?

Our daughter, Stella. When she was a teenager, she suffered a sudden bout of depression and anxiety. And it was then, in the middle of her high-school career, that we experienced first-hand the lack of appropriate services, coordination, and age appropriate treatment that is available in Canada without private dollars. When we were faced with all these situations first-hand, we then proceeded – for the next 3 or 4 years – to get the help she needed. We rallied around her as a family and did what we could until she was more stable.

When she was feeling better and getting on her way, I knew something had to change. I just felt that as a woman who has been involved in the community in other initiatives, this was something that I was really committed to taking on, to help the 1 in 5 young adults suffering with the same issue. We can’t afford to lose our kids and not give them better support than they’re getting now.

What can schools do to help their students with their mental health?

There are a lot of news article and traffic around mental health, especially for those in this age group (16-29). I know that there are some programs being offered that allow kids to either talk about it, or teach mindfulness or yoga-type exercises. Generally speaking, it’s become less of a stigma so kids can now start talking to each other about these things. We’re hoping to, at some point, partner with schools so that they understand that we are available to them.

What can the youth do to help themselves?

Talk to your friends! It’s a double-edged sword – on one hand, if they speak to the wrong person, they might get stigmatized. But if they have a close friend, speak to them. If they can’t, speak to their parents and say ‘I’m not feeling great, and I don’t know what to do.’

Go to your guidance counselor at school to find out what support you can get if you’re feeling too much pressure, can’t get out of bed anymore, or have too much anxiety. Some kids are self-harming and this is a sign of something that is more serious, and you should seek help.

How do you plan on achieving your goal of reaching thousands of students across Ontario?

We are building incrementally. Once we launch our online portal, in 2016, it will be a good way for people from across Ontario to connect with us. We have to establish the back-up clinical support for the online chat groups and peer support, so we are being very thoughtful about how we set it up. We’re hoping to have kids contact us earlier on, to try and use early intervention and support to prevent more serious issues from coming up.

It’s going to take a lot of work. We’re launching our first program this June, training about 30 peer support workers, who we hope can then go out into various communities and start providing peer support to young adults that need someone to talk to. Sometimes just having someone to talk to and answer their questions can be of help, especially when it comes to dealing with preventive strategies before they get more involved in deeper issues.

How did George Brown get involved?

We decided as a community service to partner with as many community agencies as possible. We didn’t want to duplicate any good services that were there and we knew that George Brown was doing some very innovative things. So we approached them to partner with our Peer Support Training Program and with the online café. The Peer Support Training Program just launched this week, and these students will graduate in August. We are working with all types of organizations and people to form a collaborative team.

When is the online café launching?

It’s in development now. We’re hoping to begin some trials in late 2015 with a plan to officially launch in 2016.

What are you looking most forward to with this project?

I think we’re really excited by the new model of this initiative. The idea that Stella’s Place is giving young people with lived experience a voice, a way to give back after their own experiences, is not being done anywhere else. We are developing our programs from the inside out instead of from the top down. We just don’t believe that senior adults with professional experience can accurately dictate what is best for young adults. We need to share the voices of young adults. We’re really proud to be working with such a wonderful group of young people who have helped get us this far.

We will continue to speak to our government officials and make it clear to them of the desperate need out there. The Stella’s Place model is unique and they cannot continue with the same old strategies and medical support, because it’s not working very well. We’re really excited about reaching out to kids in a whole new way, ideally before they get into the deeper issues. Stella’s Place will help the kids get what they need in a very recovery-based fashion.