Special surprise speaker
Dec 01, 2020 7:00 AM
Join us today for a very special speaker from Rotary International
Our speaker introduction today was by Ana Sutherland:
Hadi Mortada, our District Governor.
Hadi was born and raised in Beirut Lebanon, and received early education at St Joseph school. Hadi completed a diploma in Electronics Technology at the Beirut Technical College. In 1985 he moved to the United States where he completed English studies and pre-engineering at the University of Georgia. In 1986 Hadi moved to Colorado where he completed Electronics Engineering Technology at the University of Southern Colorado. Hadi is also a Microsoft Certified Professional MCP (1998). In late 1989 Hadi moved to Canada and completed Sales & Marketing Certificates at Algonquin College. At the same time, he was part of a team that started a daily news paper in Ottawa, "The Ottawa Sun" where he worked with the company for 27 years.
Hadi's Rotary involvement
- Member of the Rotary Club of West Ottawa since 2003
- Club President 2013-14
- Years as AG 2014-2019, 5 years
- District Legislative Committee
- Completed all levels of Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI)
- Paul Harris X 2
- Bequest Society
- Lloyd Loynes Volunteer award recipient (Rotary Club of West Ottawa)
District Conference committee 14-15, 15-16, 16-17 PR & Sponsorship
Hadi's roles in his club include - Public Relations committee chair, Calendar Committee, Mums Committee, Membership committee, Club President, Music for Humanity committee, Club Co-Treasurer, Chair Social & Recreational Committee. Hadi also played an instrumental role in developing the club's website. He is Social Media liaison for West Ottawa and the Ottawa area clubs.
Conventions Attended Montreal, Lisbon, Atlanta, Toronto, Hamburg, and many District Conferences
Hadi is a landlord of rental properties, and a renovator, builder, and gardener. His hobbies are travel, cycling, rowing with Dragon Boat Team, classic cars enthusiast and restoration.
Hadi has always been impressed by our club, and what we accomplish both locally and internationally. He told us about how he became involved in Rotary. Back in 2002, a friend and client invited him to have lunch at a Rotary meeting, and he eventually joined the club in 2003 while he was still working. In 2007, he became ill with Crohn’s disease, and had to take time off. In January 2008, he was hospitalized for three months. He and his wife had no family here in Canada, and it was his friends in Rotary that responded and supported him. This is when he came to realize that there is a Rotary family that everyone has. Rotarians care about each other as well as doing service work together. People seem to join for one reason and stay for another…this often being the friendships that develop.
Rotary offers everyone a lot of opportunities. During this time of Covid 19, we needed to adapt and have often turned a negative thing into different positives. Rotary is a team. We were able to use Covid 19 as an opportunity. It is important that we set goals as they give us direction, whether or not we actually achieve them all. They can change, but they are important in providing a road map. We achieve more when we have set goals. It’s important for Rotary to maintain visibility in our community.
Hadi worked on membership in his club, and has realized that it’s easier to get members than it is to keep them. Rotary needs to be accessible and affordable. Maybe we should consider gathering differently and break away from “the way we have always done it”.
We should look to other organizations for new possible ways to do things. Invite other service organizations to join us on a project. We can achieve more that way.
We should be aware of the new Area of Focus on the environment that was introduced by Rotary International. We should promote District activities among our members. The first ever virtual District Conference is about to happen, and it’s going to be great.
In answer to a question, Hadi let us know that we can register for the District Conference up to Friday at noon. There are going to be some great presenters, and great break out sessions. Also, there is going to be a drum circle.
John Gale thanked Hadi with our now traditional virtual loaf of bread.
Doug Hicks introduced Sarah Champagne, a journalist from Montreal who was a Rotary Peace Fellow taking her Master's at the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism. We've learned recently how rigorous the application is. Sarah has worked in print, multimedia, and radio. She has worked for Le Devoir in Quebec, and reported as a freelancer for publications in 15 countries over four continents. Teaming with photographers, she has worked on a large project on human migration. She has been awarded the James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship, a major Canadian journalism award, and has been identified as an emerging talent by two Quebec journalism federations, and she speaks four languages.
Sarah thanked us for sharing peace stories today. She is now in Austin, Texas, and started with thanks for her Rotary Peace Scholar experience.
(This portion of Sarah's talk was obtained from her Power Point presentation as my connection failed)
Rotary operates the Peace Scholar program from six different countries - England, USA (North Carolina), Sweden, Uganda, Australia, Japan and Thailand. Sarah participated in the two-year Master's program, and there is also an intensive Professional Development Certificate Program lasting a few weeks (former member Francine Allard was a participant). More tan 1300 alumni work on peace and development in 115 countries. Over half work with NGO's or government agencies. 6% work for UN agencies.
(Connection restored)
Sarah showed us her class (class 16 and 17), highlighting a couple of students who made a special impact on her. Linh Vo from Vietnam raised herself because her parents were so poor - her father was a bomb sawyer after the Vietnam War, selling metal from dismantled bombs. Vo now works in Vietnam in the area of ethical investment.
Emilya Huseynova is from Azerbaijan. She is an epidemiologist, working in the US on the Covid response. Emilya was raising three children while studying as a Peace Scholar. She felt that as a woman from a former Soviet country that her role as a Peace Scholar is very important.
Yared Lemma is from Ethiopia. Yared found his niche through the Peace Scholar program, working in the area of migration and applying data science to peace building.
But what about Sarah? She has travelled to Cameroon, Guatemala, Mexico, Nepal after an earthquake, Benin, and many other places. Why did she want to return to school? In 2015/2016, she was preparing for a project on remittances - small amounts of money sent home by immigrants for basic needs. Together these remittances account for three times the world's formal development assistance. People take their fates into their own hands to climb the social ladder - this is what attracted Sarah's attention. If those immigrants' remittances were a country, the GDP would rank 25th in the world.
Sarah went to meet the families benefiting from these remittances. She traveled to Haiti, Mexico, and then Turkey to meet Syrian refugees. There she met Sarah, a young woman the same age, who was waiting for a sponsor, as Turkey was only a temporary home. Sarah returned to Montreal to write a story for Le Devoir, thinking that if people could meet people life Syrian Sarah, it would influence opinions to welcome other refugees. The same day her article was to be published, she also wrote a piece on Donald Trump's Muslim ban, and the shooting that occurred at the Quebec Mosque. This pushed Sarah to apply for the Peace Fellowship. She decided to try to promote dialogue through her stories, and the Fellowship would help her do just that. That principle - dialogue through stories - would influence all her work. She is trying to merge her values with Rotary's Four Way Test and what she has learned as a Peace Fellow.
She researched peace journalism, focusing on stories of transformation - how can someone involved in war be an agent of peace. For her Filed Applied Experience between the two years of the Fellowship, Sarah traveled to Columbia. Columbia signed a peace treaty in 2016 that was supposed to end 50 years of conflict, although the reality is more complicated. Sarah was very interested in the Peace Commission, which collects stories around the country to help write an official history. Following their work and attending their meetings, and met a man who was forced to be a child soldier when he was 13. After demobilization through a government program 4 years later, he became a cameraman for one of the largest TV stations in Columbia. He became a model of the idea that it doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done, it's who you can become. He represents for Sarah the whole history of Columbia.
Sarah also told us that she was working for the Texas Tribune based in Austin, although she was working remotely. She pitched a project to Le Devoir in the vein of how do people reconcile divisions? She new that there would be many articles in the US talking about division leading up to the election but wanted to take a different approach. So she returned to Austin (after 5 other states) to write articles.
Questions - Bill Egnatoff - your work reminds me of my time in Sierra Leone. How to women drive the quest for peace? For women it's just the fight to survive, to 'push the life in front of them'. Their interest in peace is much higher, and they have to pay a role in peace building. A researcher speaking at the Fellowship told the class that peace treaties are 50% more likely to work if women are involved early in the process. Women experience particularly brutal violence in war, and need to be involved in peace making.
John Gale - what is the common thread of studies in the Fellowship given everyone's varied background? There is one compulsory class each semester, including mediation and negotiation, which has really helped Sarah in her work. Other experts lectured as well, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees spoke at the University. Many Alumni have given presentations, and some have joined Rotary. Alumni also continue to meet online.
Greta - is there a link between the Universities involved in the Fellowship? The major link is Rotary. There are common sessions, and a common newsletter. Unfortunately time constraints don't allow travel to other centres, but the directors meet regularly. The Alumni will also form a strong bond between centres.
Heather Nogrady thanked our speaker today. Thank-you for another learning experience for a relatively new Rotarian.
Introduction by Martin Thomas: Some say that the character of a society is measured by how they take care of the needy and vulnerable. I think that includes pets and animals. The Kingston Humane Society originated in 1884. Its objective is to provide shelter and care for animals and to investigate cruelty to or abuse of animals in the Kingston community.
Gord Hunter, Executive Director, Kingston Humane Society (KHS).
Gord began with Big Paws, the KHS fundraiser, September 15th - October 15th, for which the media launch was September 15th, shortly after our meeting. Normally it’s at Lake Ontario Park but this year is online, with participants logging their dog-walking kilometres, aiming to reach right across Canada!
KHS is nearly 140 years old, the longest-running Humane Society in Canada. The Montreal SPCA has been going a bit longer. Generally, the SPCA has been in charge of investigation of cruelty and welfare issues. The Humane Society has helped, but not necessarily been involved in investigations. This year, a local judge decision affected charity involvement in law enforcement, so the SPCA in Ontario couldn’t continue investigations, so they stopped as of June 30 last year. The KHS stepped in and got some provincial funding for involvement in investigations for 6 months. Then the Solicitor General’s office took over in early January.
KHS is a shelter, providing municipal services for seven municipalities in the Kingston area—City of Kingston, Loyalist Township, Stone Mills, Gananoque, and Central, South, and North Frontenac. We usually hold animals for up to 5 days. If animals are not claimed, then they can be put up for adoption. KHS feeds, treats, and spays or neuters as needed before adoption.Last year KHS took in about 1800 animals, 65% cats and 35% dogs. The cat return rate is only 5% but the rate is well over 60% for dogs.Seventy percent of KHS funding comes from the community, including regular donations and estate gifts. Funds are used to treat and care for animals. A veterinarian is on staff four days per week. She does spays and neutering and treats injuries.Funding is obtained through public events such as Big Paws, Bowl for the Animals, a month-long bake sale, and an online auction. KHS lost or changed some events due to COVID-19, through which they lost about $100,000 in funding.
In response to COVID-19, from March 17 to May 6, KHS stopped adoptions. On May 6, they started contactless adoption and fostering, which got a great response. They now have a cohort system for their staff to work safely to avoid another potential shutdown. They use Zoom for placement arrangements. Luckily, they have remained COVID-free. In June, KHS re-started adoptions and taking surrendered animals. They’ve done about 250 adoptions since May 6. The community and staff have taken well to this, although the contactless adoption is more work and is more time-consuming. Cats can be done entirely on Zoom. For dogs, prospective adopters can choose them through seeing them in an off-leash area.
The annual Big Paws event in Lake Ontario Park is very exciting for the staff and participants. It draws a huge variety of dogs. All staff assist. This year it had to be done differently—a month-long Big Paws across Canada virtual event. People track their walks. The goal is to complete a virtual walk across Canada. The registration fee is $25. Walk reporting is done on a Web site.
The staff have done very well, with no infections. They have even covered duties of the usual 200 volunteers.
Questions:
Greta: Is KHS involved only with pets or also wild-life in the city?
A: We are partnered with Sandy Pines for wildlife and transfer to them.
Rick: introduced Trixie-Lou, who came from KHS seven years ago. What is the hold time? With Trixie-Lou it was an extra five days. She was not claimed, so the original owners' loss was my gain!
A: Hold time is decided by municipalities. If the animal has a micro-chip, we can contact the owner. If there’s a collar, we hold it as long as possible. Strays are usually easily identified as such. We have partnerships with local lost-and-found Web sites and a woman who is a “pet detective.”
Rick: Is having a staff vet new?
A: Yes. Our veterinarian, Dr. Lorie Games, works with us 4 days a week. We don’t want to adopt out unaltered animals or have poor outcomes.
Elizabeth: What percentage of strays have been microchipped by their owners? Do you microchip animals that go out?
A: Less than 30% come with microchips, and about the same portion with tags. We encourage tag purchase. We hold micro-chip clinics, which will resume some time in the future.
John F: Has there been an increase in voluntary surrender during COVID?
A: There has been a decrease. There has been a 40% reduction of intakes across Ontario. All SPCA shelters are still closed to surrenders. Our surrenders are now scheduled, which eliminates spontaneous surrenders. Also, people are around their houses more so are less likely to have problems.
Elizabeth Cohoe: What about unclaimed strays of particular breeds? Do you work with breed-specific rescues?
A: Yes, we have partners. Example: Great Pyrenees, a protective breed. This dog needs to go to someone who understands the challenges. We work with breed-specific or behaviour-specific rescue organizations.
John Farrow: and do you work with Sheba’s Haven?
A: Yes. Some rescue organizations are familiar with palliative care. We started our own program recently. Some families are willing to provide care.
Martin Thomas: Our son adopted a great dog from Texas. A friend adopted one from Alabama. Are dogs from the southern USA an issue?
A: We’ve helped too; for example after a hurricane, the International Humane Society goes down. We take dogs in shelters there so dogs lost in the hurricane can be admitted. During COVID, you worry about fomite carriers so we quarantine and use full personal protective equipment. (Scribe note: The American Veterinary Medical Association published this, which has a paragraph on fomite transmission—transmission through touching contaminated surfaces: COVID-10: FAQs For Pet Owners.)
Martin: Are cats in need of therapy during COVID?
A: I’ve seen the jokes about dogs and cats! Cats don’t do as well in shelters, since we can’t let them out for walks.
Rick Fiedorec: As a recipient, I’m truly thankful. ( Rick presented a virtual loaf of bread.)
Sophie was born and raised in Kingston. She received her education from Queen’s University, Humber College and Athabasca University.
Sophie has a long and positive history of work in public and stakeholder relations, is a solid team builder and is accustomed to work in stressful situations with unpredictable and continuously shifting priorities. She speaks French and English is her first language.
Sophie spent seventeen years working in retail management and as an entrepreneur. She spent five years living in Turkey and France studying English literature and French at Athabasca University part-time. She volunteered in an ex-patriot women’s group to raise funds in Turkey to help build their first women’s shelter. Upon returning to Canada from Europe, she started working in residential and commercial renovation, interior design, and rental property ownership.
Sophie ran for the Liberal nomination and became our Liberal MPP in the 2014 election. During her tenure, she has served as a Parliamentary Assistant to several ministers, most recently as PA to the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.
In 2014, Sophie focused attention on the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. As part of her campaign to raise awareness, she publicized the Faceless Doll Project, an art project which uses faceless female dolls to represent the missing women.[7] On October 23, 2014 she read a Members' motion in the legislature calling on the Ontario Legislature to support the National Aboriginal Organisations' call on the Federal government to initiate a public inquiry to study the issue. In July 2020, Sophie revealed that she was running for the Ontario Liberal Party again with the nomination set to take place in 2022. She is a fellow Rotarian and is member of Kingston Waterfront Club.
Sophie Kiwala spoke about helping the community during the pandemic.
Before her presentation, Sophie talked about a project at Q.E.C.V.I. that helps financially challenged graduating students with the fee for post secondary applications. Having heard about what we are doing at Pathways, she thought this might be of interest to the club.
Sophie began her talk by sharing that she had lived overseas for five years, and when she returned, she wanted to start a business. Her brother in law’s experience has always continued to inspire her. He developed a company that made chimney liners, and went knocking on doors for contracts even before he knew how chimney liners were made. This kind of optimism has always struck her as the way to go about something.
After the 2019 election had taken place, and she found out about the Christmas time closure of programmes that provided free meals to people in need, she decided to take action. She reached out, looking for volunteers and for a source of training for herself. She attended Lunch by George to learn about how this could be done. She found two venues, at St. Luke’s Church and at the Renaissance Event Venue. Sophie was overwhelmed by the amount of support that her idea received. There were many donations of time and of food from the community. The Muslim Association sponsored and did the cooking at the Renaissance. It was really moving to see the number of volunteers. In fact, so many people wanted to help, she was having difficulty finding things for everyone to do. The owner of the Renaissance, Paul Fortier, was also very generous and helped with the cooking. Even a young boy made cards for all the gift bags.
After that program came Covid, and Sophie worried about changes in the food supply chain and how it would affect people in need. Two community members, Salahuddin and Ulfat Jalaluddin, came forward with an offer of having a large garden planted on their property which is near the Robinson Farm. Pyke Farms delivered compost and Loving Spoonful donated seed. Tomlinson Organic also provided some soil. Friendships developed among the volunteers who worked in the garden. A mask making project evolved from this project, and proceeds from that went to the Youth Shelter and the Humane Society. Many people were involved, wanting to give something back to the community.
Michelle Chatten-Fiedorec offered our thanks to Sophie with our traditional loaf of bread that has become virtual. Sophie was touched by our thanks and told us about something in the Koran that it reminded her of… If I had only two things, a loaf of bread and a hyacinth, I would give the loaf of bread to someone who needed it, and keep the hyacinth to feed my soul.
Elizabeth Cohoe introduced our speakers this morning. Holly Gwynne - Timothy is the Artistic Director of Melos Choir, and has a great history with music. What you may not know is that her knowledge extends to the actual functioning of the human voice. And with Holly was Julia Davies, a social worker for the Cancer Center of South Eastern Ontario. She overseas a lot of the therapeutic programming for their clients, so together they're going to talk about the project called Finding Our Voice, a program that was partially funded through our Community Grants process in the fall of 2019.
Julia:
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Um, I really appreciate it. And obviously we very much appreciated the grant that you provided. I'm Julia Davis. I'm one of the social workers at the Cancer Center here in Kingston. There are four social workers at the Cancer Center, and more recently I have been involved in trying to look at some more alternative type of therapeutic groups for our patients. Ideally what I wanted to try and do is not to have groups at the Cancer Center. We found historically that groups are not well attended at the Cancer Center, and really that I feel came from the fact that people spend enough time there having treatment and multiple appointments that, really, who wants to come to the Cancer Center. I started to think about the idea of, well, why don't we have more groups in the community and move? The attendance would be better as well as being much more therapeutic for someone. Often the Cancer Center can be really triggering to people. Often people who have finished their treatment do not want to go back there unless they absolutely have to, which, I'm sure we can all really understand. So when I started to think about alternative groups I came across an article from out of the UK actually written in collaboration with the Welsh Cancer charity, who did some reach research into the therapeutic value of singing. So I thought, well, why not have a singing group?
I asked Holly if she was interested in it, and in her usual style. Holly was immediately enthusiastic and it actually didn't take much organizing. We found a venue, Holly was on board and it was publicized through the Communications Department at the hospital. It was really good. We started off using the Tett Center as our venue a couple of years ago in the fall and we got good attendance. What I what I found with the group from a social perspective is that it's really worked. The feedback we've had is that people have really appreciated that it's been off site - not been at the Cancer Center. Anecdotally, I think it's ticked the mental health box for a lot of people. I think a lot of people after treatment become quite isolated socially. A lot of confidence is gone and so it was really quite good to get people physically out to an event. It was really good that it became part of people's routine and Monday night they came to singing. WhatI really loved is we got a really great cross section of people. I think at one point our youngest member was 29 and our oldest was in her 80s. We struggled a little bit with getting men along, but I think at one point we had 4 four men and on average. On a on a really good night we'd maybe have about 13 people out. Sometimes people really struggle with stamina and with ongoing side effects of treatment, so there was never any pressure for people. Holly and I made it really clear that it wasn't exactly a drop in, but you really didn't have to make any kind of firm commitment and we were always really pleased to see people whenever they could attend. Another really nice thing that we did was we moved from the Tett Center to St. Paul’s Anglican church on Montreal and Queen. The church was a really lovely facility for people and from my perspective it was really nice. Halfway through we all had tea and there was an opportunity for people to speak during that time. We when we took breaks it was really interesting because I think what people really liked about the group was it wasn't all about cancer.
Being a non-musical person, it was very interesting to me because I think when I started the group I had in my head I would be the Social Work person there and of course I wouldn't sing and then the first day it dawned on me like obviously I would sing as well. I think for the people who came were maybe a bit shy and you do make yourself a bit vulnerable when you haven't ever done any choir singing or any group singing. We did have a sort of festive group. Members of Melos joined us and we had some festive singing at the Cancer Center last December. Families came and sat and listened as well.
I have so many memories of sitting in my office, speaking with people who were really struggling with mental health and not knowing what to do and I would say to them all, why don’t you come to the singing group? it was a very good project and to my mind very successful and patients are talking about it to me now and they really miss the group and the sense of camaraderie, but mostly actually really are missing singing.
Holly:
It’s a little hard after six months of quarantine and no singing to just suddenly feel such a flood of gratitude and memories about this experience of working with Julia and her clients at the Cancer Center. You know, she's a great listener, but also now I know a great speaker and she's good singer. I do want to say that I've worked in my with people with damaged voices or impaired voices. I've had the privilege of working with a couple of people with cancer, some people post-stroke, but this was my first time in a group setting and it was also my first time kind of being connected to such people as a complete stranger. Other times that I've had the chance to work with these people, they've come to me through a known connection and there's been a little bit of safety for them in jumping into the agreement to sing My main goal was to work on functional vocal exercises that would restore the autonomic reflexes in the vocal tract. These are things that we don't think about much unless we start to lose our speaking voice. The main thing is frustration and difficulty communicating feelings and thoughts to their loved ones and colleagues. This is one of the things with cancer treatment. It's such a shock to the system and a lot of the overt physiological elements of cancer treatment are exceedingly damaging to the vocal tract. On top of that, we had people in the group, some of whom had throat, cancer, lung cancer, Esophageal cancer and brain cancer. All of which were accompanied by surgeries which were extremely invasive, so you can begin to imagine the sorts of anxieties they had around their bodies and the frustrations from things they were in the in the middle of experiencing or had recently experienced. So I was pretty nervous about working with a mixed group. We had someone in the group who'd been singing all her life, and then a couple of professionals who came through one right on the heels of treatment for throat cancer and so we had others who had never opened their mouths to sing. That mixture really in a sense, helped the emotional tenor of the group. The levelling factor was cancer, so the desire to find something optimistic and forward moving and the desire not to dwell on anything negative or frustrating was important. So my challenge in setting the exercises was not to push them into that zone of fatigue and frustration, but to allow exercises that would enable their bodies to generate sound more effortlessly. I would say I had pretty good success rate and I certainly got some amazing feedback from people about sensations, of improved breathing, phonation, and developing a singing voice. I had one or two that I felt I couldn't help in the physiological sense, who week after week reported “wow, my voice still doesn't sustain itself”, but I think Julia touched on the communal benefits, the emotional benefits the pure joy we had. There was never any shame, never any sense that one should be improving. Even when you're singing without cancer, you have to take each day as it comes, because the voice is a mirror of so many things - what you've eaten, how much sleep you've had, your emotions, allergies in any number of things can affect the voice on a given day, so one must always take what's given to you on a given day and in that spirit, I led the group and encouraged them to be gentle in their judgements about the sounds they were making and how they were feeling. So it was a really a true privilege and I want to thank the Rotary for everything you did to support this endeavour.
Holly then read a couple of very heartfelt letters from a couple of the participants in the group.
In response to questions, Holly told us that the group hopes to resume once Covid restrictions are eased. In the future a more distinct division between those only interested in the Monday night group and those wanting a collaboration with Melos will be pursued. They hope to continue performing at the Cancer Center as well because that was very satisfying to both the group and the patients.
The program received funding from several sources but both Julia and Holly are confident that funding for the group can be secured from various sources.
As said by one of our members, we can all be proud of the funding we provided for this great program.
Bill Egnatoff thanked Julia and Holly for a great presentation.
Service Above Self
Kingston, ON K7K 2B5
Canada