Phyllis Tsang

Responding to Haitians

phyllistsang — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:47:57 +0000

Humans are helplessly inferior to natural disasters. They come and go at their time, location, and magnitude. The best chance humans have to survive is to plan and prepare before a natural disaster strikes, to prevent damage and causalities, and to respond and recover efficiently and effectively.

A runner's story of bringing joy and hope to Haiti

phyllistsang — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:40:44 +0000

"Why are we giving to Haiti?" a lady asked a year ago when she found out about Road to Hope, an annual fundraising run for Haiti organized by Runner's Den, a running store in Hamilton and Westdale.

No one would ask that now.

Bracelet of Hope to end one nation's AIDS pandemic

phyllistsang — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:09:04 +0000

Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik opens a Place of Hope in Lesotho

"Are you going to help the people who are [HIV] positive?" A South African crossing guard at South Africa’s border asked Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik on her way to Lesotho, a landlocked nation surrounded by South Africa, where her HIV treatment clinic is located.

"You bet I am," Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, a mom, a family doctor, a McMaster alumni, and HIV/AIDS activist, recorded in her journal, "all 300,000 of them."

Her battle against the global HIV pandemic, which brought her to Lesotho, began in Canada.

Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik attended McMaster medical school after studying three years at University of Guelph in Biomedical Science and Human Biology. In 1987, during her second year at McMaster, Zajdlik studied an elective in Infectious disease at Dalhousie University in Halifax and worked with a team that was treating the first HIV-positive patient on the east coast.

"He," referring to the first HIV-positive patient, "was left by his partner, disowned by his family, and deserted by medical staff," Zajdlik remembered, "nurses were afraid, even cleaning staff wouldn't go into his room."

At that time, Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, a 3000 pages textbook used by medical students, internists and junior doctors, only had a paragraph on HIV. Stigma, fear, and a lot of unknown surrounded the then 6-year-old incurable disease.

" I was quite moved by his isolation," Zajdlik said. She spent hours sitting at his bedside talking to him. The depth of his pain, his incredible strength, and his will to survive inspired her to go back and study more.

Greening behaviours using technology

phyllistsang — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:11:55 +0000

An 80-year-old church goes green

A server water shortage led a city in Mexico to employ school children to take charge in support of water preservation. These students are changing attitudes and behaviours of their peers and adults.

Matamoros, a northeastern city in Mexico minutes away from Texas, is the last largest city that uses water from Rio Grande, the "Big River" that originates in Colorado. When the river dried up in July 2000, the city's water department resorted to enlisting thousands of schoolchildren as "water detectives"—or "los detectives del agua" in Spanish, to be educated about water preservation, to search and report water leakages and wasteful behaviours around the city, and to educate others about the importance of proper water usage. In 2004, Matamoros consumed 18 per cent less water than in 2003, a result attributed to the tireless water detectives.

"If a 'green culture' is not there," said executive director of Green venture Pete Wobschall after giving the Matamoros' success story as an example during a presentation of an energy audit on Oct. 10, "You are really limiting what technology can do for you."

Greening Sacred Spaces, an imitative to educate faith communities about ecological issues and to help them create sustainable worship spaces, brought on Green Venture, a community-based non-profit organization committed to sustainability. Green Venture was implemented to perform an energy audit on Melrose United Church, an 80-years-old church in downtown Hamilton.

While most people do not have the luxury of a historical church that needs an energy audit, most people do live in homes that could benefit from energy audits.

"We've done an energy audit on a house that is less than two years old." Wobschall thinks that most Canadians do not build with the environment in mind.

Riding miles that matter

phyllistsang — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:37:54 +0000

Hamilton riders touching lives of refugees

The Ride for Refugees is about Francis.

The Teso rebels killed Francis’ parents in the 1990s. When Francis was 14, the Lord’s Resistance Army, a sectarian guerrilla army based in northern Uganda, abducted him. He was then trained to kill and became a commander. Soon enough, Francis became one of his abductors—he captured other children and beat them, pillaged villages, and killed at least 35 people. In 2005, he was shot in the back, leg, and neck. His injuries provided a window of opportunity to escape. And he did. However, dreams and a desire to go back to kill continued to haunt him until he attended a Freedom Camp, which provides spiritual counseling for those in Children Associated with Armed Forces (CAAF) program, supported by the funds raised in the Ride For Refugees (R4R).

The inaugural Ride for Refugees happened six years ago in Waterloo with only one rider—Neil Ostrander—the Director of Development of International Teams, an organization dedicated to meeting physical and spiritual needs of the poor and oppressed. In 2008, the event attracted 1,638 riders and raised $604,080.

215 riders joined Ride for Refugees Hamilton on Oct. 3, along with 16 other cities in Canada and United States which hosted the ride on the same day. As of today, R4R has gathered 3200+ riders and 1000+ volunteers, and has raised $670,000 so far, with two more locations to go.

First time organizer, David Witt kept himself busy overseeing the event while riders were on the road.

“Some youths who rode were facing a lot of challenges themselves. They rode here [the meeting location], did the ride, and rode back home. It was quite inspiring,” Witt shared.

One of those to whom Witt was referring was a high school student who raised $275 for refugees, but had to spend his nights under a bridge.

Discrimination, or not? Community Forum explores

phyllistsang — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:07:57 +0000

A look into restructured Ontario Human Rights system

You always wear a hijab (a traditional head covering worn by Muslim women). On your first day of work at a coffee shop, the owner says you have to take it off because everyone wears a company baseball cap. Would you consider this a case of discrimination?

What about this? You and your friends are having a great time at the mall, laughing and having fun. You notice that a security guard is close by and is watching all of you. You also notice that other white kids are doing the same thing, but the security guard only asks you and your friends to leave because you are making too much noise. You and your friends are Asians.

At the Community Forum hosted by Hamilton's Community Legal Clinics on 24 Sep. at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, two speakers, Sharmaine Hall and Lesley Brook from the Toronto based Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC) opened the forum with these scenarios, asking the audience to decide whether they are cases of discrimination.

The audience had two choices: to raise a red sign to indicate "no” or a green one to indicate "yes." For the two scenarios above? Unanimously yes.

The new Ontario human rights system is in full effect since 30 Jun. 2008. The Forum was opened to anyone who wanted to find out how the new system is working, what kinds of discrimination are being reported, and what resources are available to those with complaints.

Last year, "more voices called for social and economic status and gender identity to be treated as essential human rights." The new structure was put in place to meet these new challenges and continues to battle against age, gender, and racial discrimination.

As of 30 Dec. 2008, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) is a three-pillared system, which consists of Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), OHRC, and Human Right Legal Support Centre (HRLSC).

Breaking Aboriginal stereotypes through Art

phyllistsang — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:28:27 +0000

"We are often being portrayed negatively in the media," Andrew Pederson, one of the 13 young native artists featured at Art Gallery of Ontario said; "I want to express who we are as native people."
Stereotypes of Native people are engrained in the minds of many Canadians. Films and literatures reinforce those stereotypes for over a hundred years and a lot of news coverage confirms them. The media often centers on political and constitutional issues, forest fires, poverty and substance or sexual abuse, and little attention is given to their culture and achievements. All of these result in an image of inferiority and a loss of self-esteem among the Native youths.
When Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) became a reality in 1999, it opened doors to Aboriginal artists, writers, actors, and producers with the skills and the means to bring Aboriginal people their own images and messages. Now, Canadians are able to watch programming produced by native people, as long as they are willing to surf up to channel 55 and beyond.
The Network alone is not enough to eradicate deeply rooted stereotypes.
On July 8th, an exhibition of art works by Native youths at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) provided a two-folded opportunity to dispel the plague: It opened a platform for the young artists to reacquaint with their heritage, express their identity, and reclaim their right to define who they are; it also allowed the public to unlearn stereotypes and relearn about Aboriginal people.
(Re)represetnation, the first joint venture of the Youth Council at AGO and Native Canadian Centre Toronto (NCCT), brought together 13 Native youths to produce 12 pieces of art work.
Tannis Nielson is the coordinator of the youth program at NCCT. She runs The One Nation in Unity Youth Program which provides a wide range of activities, including sports, art, media, and even historical study of Indian movement.

New Hope: Bike coop to give new lives to old bikes

phyllistsang — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:14:24 +0000

-HAMILTON- "This is the stage I like the most about fixing bikes,” Sid Slotegraaf, Coordinator of New Hope Bike Co-op and a soft-spoken downhill racer and dirt jumper, said while dusting off a "pre-loved" bicycle, "you don't always know how they would turn out. It's like giving them new lives again."

New Hope Bike Co-op, a program which focuses on giving back to the community by helping people to fix their own bikes, and providing low cost parts, free use of tools and low cost refurbished bicycles, is the brainchild of Jeff Neven, a cyclist and a father of four who could ride only when kids are put to sleep.

The idea was born in 1997 when Jeff was working with inner city kids in Grand Rapids where he started a bicycle repair club for boys and girls. Upon returning to Canada, he continued to find opportunities and partner with likeminded groups, like Recycle Cycles in Kitchener and MacCycle Co-op at McMaster University to serve communities with his bike repairing skills.

In the past three years, First Hamilton Christian Reformed Church and its church plant, New Hope Church hosted a couple single-day bike repairing events at East Hamilton and had been well received by their neighborhoods. The success of these events furthered Jeff’s vision of developing a bike co-op at East Hamilton. This summer, New Hope Bike Co-op, backed by church donations and a grant from Service Canada’s Summer Job Initiative, finally becomes a reality.

Since its opening in June, the bike co-op has been serving 20-40 people a day in two locations: a bike shop in the Delta East neighborhood which opens Thursdays and Fridays and a stall at Ottawa Street Farmer's Market during Saturday mornings.