Metro Highlights
Creatively boosting Bathurst Lions membership
Past President Lion Abdullah Garmandie, left and President Hewitt Loague of Toronto Bathurst Lions Club participate in a presentation to Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Corrections Jay C. Hope at the club’s 36th charter anniversary celebration. (William Doyle-Marshall pix)
By William Doyle-Marshall
An appeal for youth to become correctional officers in the Province of Ontario and a search for volunteers to become members of the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club were launched at the 36th annual Charter night fundraising and awards event held recently.
Deputy Minister of Corrections for Ontario’s Ministry of Corrections Jay C. Hope appealed for the sons and daughters in the community to become frontline correctional officers. He informed the gathering of friends and well-wishers the job pays well in excess of $60,000 with good benefits, great hours and an improving work environment.
“It’s not perfect but it is good and it is an honourable job, an honourable profession,” he stressed. Hope spoke of one of his priorities to help offenders make a successful transition back into the community particularly as there is an over-representation of African Canadian kids. Members of the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club heard that their sons and daughters could help deliver Hope’s vision.
The Deputy Minister said more than 3,000 volunteers support corrections’ work but they can always use more. The dedicated people offer emotional support, provide programmes and services for offenders that range from educational and life skills training to anger management, parenting, employment groups, to programmes for sexual offenders.
“We can’t leave anybody back because eventually these individuals will come back into our community not withstanding the pain and suffering that it causes to our friends, to our families, to ourselves, to our homes,” Hope continued.
Abdullah Garmandie who served six terms as Toronto Bathurst president coordinated the 36th annual Charter night fundraising and awards affair.
As the immediate past president he now guides the current president Hewitt Loague in the organization’s goal to boost membership by about ten percent. However finding new members is a major challenge as everyone is facing serious socio economic dilemma these days, he confessed.
Garmandie said there are people who would like to volunteer and do work in community groups but are deterred by serious social constraints. Some hold down two and three jobs due to family commitments and are unable to come out and do the additional things they would like to do in their daily routine.
Consequently Toronto Bathurst Lions Club executive members are trying diligently to meet those people. Associate membership is being offering so those individual could get involved and provide silent support behind the scenes. “But when we have events like this surely then we would see them out in their full glory,” Garmandie said
The club recognized four community members for their outstanding contributions over the years. Among them were Trinidadian Lloyd McKell, the Toronto District School Board’s Executive Officer for Student and Community Equity; Thando Hyman, school principal also with the TDSB and a long-time community advocate for equity; Jamaica’s Consul General to Toronto Anne-Marie Bonner; Maria Meyers, youth advocate and selfless supporter as well as a girls soccer coach and Deputy Minister Hope.
District Governor Gladstone Allison recognized Torontonian Al Mercury, the club’s founder and one of the first African Canadians to serve as District Governor in the organization. He brought a message from the International President, which reminds citizens, that Lions are “every day heroes performing miracles through service”.
As part of Lions International’s plan to eradicate blindness around the world, Lion Allison reported that more than $200 million dollars collected over the past two years went towards cleaning up polluted rivers where people wash their faces and contract disease in the cornea of their eyes which eventually gets damaged and lead to blindness. “We have used those funds to clean up rivers so that those individuals who must use those waters are safe,” he emphasized.
Some of the funds have gone to training optomologists and other eye care professionals.
In conjunction with the worldwide blindness eradication initiative, the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club is partnering with Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and supporting the region’s Seeing Eye dog training school in Oakville. “That’s where the dogs are trained for use by people who are visually and hearing challenged. It costs over $10,000 to train each dog and we always provide funding to the foundation that operates the school,” Garmandie emphasized.
An appeal for youth to become correctional officers in the Province of Ontario and a search for volunteers to become members of the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club were launched at the 36th annual Charter night fundraising and awards event held recently.
Deputy Minister of Corrections for Ontario’s Ministry of Corrections Jay C. Hope appealed for the sons and daughters in the community to become frontline correctional officers. He informed the gathering of friends and well-wishers the job pays well in excess of $60,000 with good benefits, great hours and an improving work environment.
“It’s not perfect but it is good and it is an honourable job, an honourable profession,” he stressed. Hope spoke of one of his priorities to help offenders make a successful transition back into the community particularly as there is an over-representation of African Canadian kids. Members of the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club heard that their sons and daughters could help deliver Hope’s vision.
The Deputy Minister said more than 3,000 volunteers support corrections’ work but they can always use more. The dedicated people offer emotional support, provide programmes and services for offenders that range from educational and life skills training to anger management, parenting, employment groups, to programmes for sexual offenders.
“We can’t leave anybody back because eventually these individuals will come back into our community not withstanding the pain and suffering that it causes to our friends, to our families, to ourselves, to our homes,” Hope continued.
Abdullah Garmandie who served six terms as Toronto Bathurst president coordinated the 36th annual Charter night fundraising and awards affair.
As the immediate past president he now guides the current president Hewitt Loague in the organization’s goal to boost membership by about ten percent. However finding new members is a major challenge as everyone is facing serious socio economic dilemma these days, he confessed.
Garmandie said there are people who would like to volunteer and do work in community groups but are deterred by serious social constraints. Some hold down two and three jobs due to family commitments and are unable to come out and do the additional things they would like to do in their daily routine.
Consequently Toronto Bathurst Lions Club executive members are trying diligently to meet those people. Associate membership is being offering so those individual could get involved and provide silent support behind the scenes. “But when we have events like this surely then we would see them out in their full glory,” Garmandie said
The club recognized four community members for their outstanding contributions over the years. Among them were Trinidadian Lloyd McKell, the Toronto District School Board’s Executive Officer for Student and Community Equity; Thando Hyman, school principal also with the TDSB and a long-time community advocate for equity; Jamaica’s Consul General to Toronto Anne-Marie Bonner; Maria Meyers, youth advocate and selfless supporter as well as a girls soccer coach and Deputy Minister Hope.
District Governor Gladstone Allison recognized Torontonian Al Mercury, the club’s founder and one of the first African Canadians to serve as District Governor in the organization. He brought a message from the International President, which reminds citizens, that Lions are “every day heroes performing miracles through service”.
As part of Lions International’s plan to eradicate blindness around the world, Lion Allison reported that more than $200 million dollars collected over the past two years went towards cleaning up polluted rivers where people wash their faces and contract disease in the cornea of their eyes which eventually gets damaged and lead to blindness. “We have used those funds to clean up rivers so that those individuals who must use those waters are safe,” he emphasized.
Some of the funds have gone to training optomologists and other eye care professionals.
In conjunction with the worldwide blindness eradication initiative, the Toronto Bathurst Lions Club is partnering with Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and supporting the region’s Seeing Eye dog training school in Oakville. “That’s where the dogs are trained for use by people who are visually and hearing challenged. It costs over $10,000 to train each dog and we always provide funding to the foundation that operates the school,” Garmandie emphasized.
“Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean” premieres at William Doo Auditorium
Tejaswini Niranjana pic by Adit Kumar
The movie, “Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean”, made its North American premiere on October 29 at the William Doo Auditorium of the University of Toronto, downtown Toronto. It was part of a hectic schedule of activities organized at the Caribbean Studies Department headed by its Director, Alissa Trotz and was attended largely by students of the program. Jamaica’s Consul General to Toronto was also present at the screening.
Ramabai Espinet, of the University of Toronto, introduced Tejaswini Niranjana, who conceptualised and co-produced the film. Tejaswini is based at the Center for Culture and Society in Bangalore, India and flew in from India for the show. She gave a background to the movie which draws on her recently released book, Mobilising India: Women, Music and Migration between India and Trinidad (Duke Univ. Press, 2006). She fielded questions from the floor after the screening.
At the end of the show students had an opportunity to make comments and ask questions and they generally said that they enjoyed the movie. They said they found it interesting and entertaining. One student said that she was expecting to see how the music of India influenced the music of Jamaica in a way it has influenced the music of Trinidad but Tejaswini pointed out that the movie is not exactly based on the book as director Surabhi Sharma included a section on Jamaica which is not in the book.
Tejaswini said that because of financial constraints she would not be able to continue her work on the Caribbean. This is unfortunate as it leaves out Guyana, which has a huge population of descendants of Indian Indentured labourers, from her study.
A promotion of the film states that the movie chronicles the journey of Indian musician Remo Fernandes as he travels to the Caribbean islands to explore potential collaborations and create new work. "Jahaji Music: India in the Caribbean" is a record of a difficult, if unusual and complex, musical journey," the promotion says.
"We walk around Trenchtown with Bob Marley's teacher and rastafari philosopher Mortimo Planno; accompany calypso and soca singer Rikki Jai to Skinner Park; chat with visual artist Chris Cozier in the Savannah; follow Dancehall Queen Stacey to Weddy Wednesday; groove to Lady Saw's lyrics; record a new song with Denise Saucy Wow Belfon and are guests at an East Indian Hindu wedding” it added. Endeavouring, through it all, to weave a story of memory, identity and creativity. Jahaji Music is an attempt to make meaning of aspects of contemporary culture in Trinidad and Jamaica, even as it is a witness to the nature and possibilities of artistic collaboration,” the promotion says.
For more information on the film, contact Alissa Trotz, Director of Caribbean Studies, 416-978-8286 or da.trotz@utoronto.
The website for Tejaswini's book, which has some audio links to the songs in the film is:http://mobilizing-india.cscsarchive.org/