Jacqueline Delange2013-05-24T20:57:36-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=jacqueline-delangeCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jacqueline DelangeGood old fashioned elbow grease.Lululemon Recall: Customers Returning Too-Sheer Yoga Pants Don't Have To Bend Over, Company Saystag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-26T12:29:35-04:002013-04-07T20:33:39-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/don’t have to bend over in a store to show that the product is too sheer, contrary to reports, according to CTV.
A company representative quickly replied to discuss a solution to the problem, and assured customers Lululemon does not need them to wear the bottoms to prove they’re too sheer.
An anonymous commenter claiming to work in a Canadian shop said asking customers to bend over “is super out of line and also very sad,” and adds some employees can feel the difference in the recalled products.
“The truth of the matter is, the only way that you can actually test for the issue is to put the pants on and bend over... It wasn’t until we got in the store and started putting it on people that we could actually see the issue.”
Lululemon hasn’t announced the exact cause of the defect. ]]>Target Canada Ad Featuring Mr. Rogers Song Slammed (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-13T11:29:12-04:002013-04-07T20:30:38-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
A Canadian ad from the major retailer has ruffled some feathers over its use of the 'Mr. Rogers' theme song 'Won’t You Be My Neighbor.'
The commercial, which first aired during the Academy Awards, features Canadian band Dragonette's electro-pop version of the song. Target’s iconic mascot Bullseye rides in a motorcycle sidecar that drives through Montreal streets, past children in a snowball fight, people skating at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square, and more Canadian scenes.
Target spokeswoman Lisa Gibson said earlier the ad was meant to highlight Canada’s communities.
]]>Canada Universities' Reputation Rankings Revealed By Times Higher Educationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-05T15:48:59-05:002013-04-07T20:31:09-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/Times Higher Education’s 2013 World Reputation Rankings.
The University of Toronto came in at number 16, the same as the year before, making it the top school in Canada in terms of reputation again this year. The University of British Columbia fell from number 25 in 2012 to number 31, and McGill also dropped six spots to number 31, in a three-way tie with Duke University.
“Canada has three world-class universities, but they are slipping and that should be a cause for concern,” he said.
Many schools in Asian countries, like South Korea, Singapore, Japan and China, have risen in rankings. As Baty noted, “Countries around the world are picking winners and investing heavily in them, so they are coming up the ranks while Canada is slipping.”
In October, six Canadian schools slipped in Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings list, of which the reputation list is a subsidiary. University of Toronto President David Naylor suggested the drop could be attributed to Canada’s flagging investment in the post-secondary sector, according to The Globe and Mail.
]]>Robert MacFarlane, @SkyJacked793, Photographs Spectacular Toronto-Area Scenes From Crane (PHOTOS)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-05T10:48:43-05:002013-04-12T14:28:47-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/captured some truly breathtaking photos of the Toronto area from his high-altitude seat.
]]>Chris Hadfield Tweets, Photographs 'Dragon' Capture (PHOTOS)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-03T18:06:48-05:002013-04-07T20:32:01-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield documented its arrival with some stunning photos.
Hadfield said the Dragon capsule will next be repacked with "experiments and hardware for splashdown in the Pacific."
Flip through the slideshow to see how the ‘Dragon’ was captured and to see more of Hadfield’s incredible photos from space:
]]>Canadian Stamp, 12 Penny Black, Sold For Around $225,000tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-02-24T17:34:56-05:002013-04-07T20:33:15-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/rare Canadian stamp sold for over $200,000 in Halifax on Saturday, Canada.com reported.
Eastern Auctions, a stamp auction firm in New Brunswick, described the specimen as "a superlative mint example of this desirable classic stamp," and "exceptionally fresh with radiant colour and an unusually bold impression on pristine fresh paper displaying strong, clearly visible laid lines."
This specimen was once owned by the Marquess of Lorne, a former governor general of Canada in the 1800s. It was also part of the renowned Dale-Lichtenstein collection.
"There are many reasons why people collect stamps and one of them is that they are beautiful pieces of art. But people like to collect history. Having history in their hand, they represent a time period. The first Canadian stamps were in 1851. It's a period of time that you can reminisce about," Charles Shreve of auctioneer Spink Shreves told CBC.]]>Generation Y And Porn: A Look At Millennials' Complicated Relationship With Online Pornographytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-01-17T05:05:35-05:002013-01-17T07:26:38-05:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
Now, she was a sexually curious teenager with an Internet connection. Within moments, she was surfing the gamut of explicit sex acts. She found some of it unattractive, rough, unrealistic; she found other parts of online porn provocative and seductive.
“A lot of it was very repetitive; women who all looked the same, really skinny, usually blond, big boobs, with guys who aren’t that attractive who … just go banging away,” said Vanessa, now a 21-year-old student at University of Toronto. “I kept digging away … trying to find things I found hot.”
As a member of Generation Y, a population of five million Canadians aged 18 to 30, Vanessa and her generational cohort have grown up with unprecedented access to graphic images of human sexuality. Just a generation ago, sexual images were limited to magazines on the top shelf at the corner variety store, videos from a shop’s back room or speciality cinemas and peep shows. Government censorship and obscenity laws limited access to the more graphic stuff.
But as digital natives, Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, has found porn available at any time, early on in life, privately accessible, free and truly unlimited. That access sets Gen Y apart from any other generation before it, although experts are divided on what, if any, impact it has on sexual attitudes and behaviour.
Googling ‘sex’ surfaces more than 2.8 billion results, from “sex videos” to “Kama Sutra tips” to Sex Addicts Anonymous, while ‘porn’ spits out almost 1.1 billion results (“free young porn,” “MILF porn,” “amateur porn” and many more).
The volume of traffic to porn sites is more difficult to discern, especially in Canada, and data are piecemeal. Internet analytics firms approached by HuffPost would not disclose their numbers. Ogas’ study found about 13 per cent of all web searches were for erotic content, while ExtremeTech reports that the biggest porn site on the web, Xvideos, registers 4.4-billion page views per month, three times the size of CNN or ESPN.
In Canada, the Ipsos Mobil-ology study, which tracks mobile device use in this country, found 15 per cent of smartphone users between 18-34 indicate they access adult content on their device, though these numbers are undoubtedly understated. About twice as many Canadian males reported accessing adult sites on their smartphone as females.
Another study, SRG's Digital Life Canada Quarterly, says 40 per cent of Canadians aged 18-34 visit "adult entertainment" websites or stream adult oriented video on a monthly basis, and two-in-three do so at least occasionally. SRG estimates 10 million Canadians of any age access adult content online.
What can be said with certainty is that there is a lot of pornography online and a big audience for it.
“You can see every sexual act that one could imagine,” said Cory Silverberg, a Toronto-based sex educator with a focus on online pornography. “All of those early sexual experiences that can be so powerful, I think that those experiences are influenced when we see a lot of sex online beforehand. I think it informs us.”
The question of how online porn informs and influences viewers leads to a, ahem, stimulating debate.
* * *
“I think some guys get the idea that women don’t have gag reflexes,” Vanessa said, half-laughing, half-serious, while reflecting on the influence of porn on her sex life.
She has also noticed partners, male and female, “who get disappointed if they can’t get you off really quickly on the first try, preferably at the same time they get off,” as in porn, and a friend’s troubling experience with anal sex (“People think you can just dive in there, which is actually not how it works.”).
Gail Dines, PhD, an author and professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College in Boston, said the average child will first see online porn at the impressionable age of 11. At that age, common heterosexual porn conventions – women choking during oral sex and facial ejaculation, for instance – can desensitize young people and give them “unrealistic expectations” about sex, she said.
Dines recounts anecdotes about male students so influenced by porn that they pressed partners into having “porn sex” and shaving their pubic hair.
“Of course, we’ve always had misogyny. But we haven’t had it shaping male sexuality this visually ever before,” she said. “It’s shaping women’s sexuality, because the men they’re partnering with want them to do gonzo (hardcore, degrading) porn,” Dines said.
But others say porn can expand sexual horizons between consenting adults.
When Andrew*, a 28-year-old from Texas, got dial-up Internet access in his mid-teens, he was amazed by how easily he could find photos of acts that appealed to specific turn-ons he already knew he had, such as bondage and discipline. When he started to have sex with his first and only sexual partner – now his fiancée – in his late teens, Andrew put what he learned from years of watching online porn to use, from trying “porn positions” to more exotic acts.
“I’m into sexual humiliation, so I tried to do some things, like I put like a collar and leash on her and tried to walk around the room, and she didn't like that,” he said. Her rejection felt disappointing, as he had wanted to try it since age 10, although he respects her choice.
“Having sex with her in a ‘vanilla’ or usual, typical way, I’ve never been unhappy about that part,” he said. “But the fact that I have this resource that I can also explore other parts of my sexual life that I enjoy safely and in a way that I enjoy, there’s no problem with that.”
Andrew said his fiancée has grown more comfortable with his preference for kinky sex and has suggested engaging in it herself.
“The last thing I want is to make her feel like she has to do something she doesn't like to please me, because that’s not the case. It still kind of weighs on me,” he said.
That’s not to say men and women cannot enjoy domination, or any other acts found in mainstream porn. But some can find it difficult to distinguish actual preferences from pressure, Vanessa points out.
“I guess it’s been generalized to: ‘All people like this.’ And I think the other problem is with mainstream, heterosexual porn. It’s not portrayed as something like, ‘Let’s do this because both parties will enjoy it,’” she said.
Besides influencing millennials’ sexual repertoires, some say porn can also influence behaviour. Mary Anne Layden, PhD, a psychotherapist and director of education at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, said the earlier young men see Internet porn, the more likely they will engage in non-consensual sex, a term that includes deliberate deception or coercion. And when women see the same messages, “I think that these women tolerate early signs of boundary-crossing,” she said.
Vanessa disapproves of pornography that’s deliberately degrading, while Andrew said he tries to consume porn responsibly and avoid its troublesome predilection for misogyny, racism and “fetishization of non-consent.” However, he notes it’s not always easy to differentiate between ethical and exploitative porn.
The tendency to violence and degradation in porn interests researchers as well. Some maintain that adult videos – which portray physical aggression in 88 per cent of the scenes, according to one study – contribute to sexist attitudes in viewers, though a link between porn and sexual aggression is hotly contested.
* * *
Although millennials have access to an ever-widening library of often questionable sexual practices, they also have access to a community of sexual diversity and self-awareness never seen before, said Rebecca Sullivan, PhD, a professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in feminist media and cultural studies.
“Ninety-nine per cent of what’s going on is not fantastic. But there are some amazing networks of alternative sexualities, positive sexualities, politically oriented sexual-identity work that’s been going on. And it can be really explicit. And really challenging and wonderful,” she said.
When Kael Howl, a 25-year-old employee at a co-operative sex store in Toronto, seeks out online porn, she gravitates towards queer, feminist sites that show “different bodies, different genders doing different acts,” aside from heterosexual norms that tend to focus solely on male desire, she said.
She cites the work of Tristan Taormino, a feminist porn director, author and sex educator whose work has shown the actors’ conversations that occur before things heat up.
“They’ll say, ‘I chose this person because they’re very respectful to this, and that’s something I’m into as well. I’ve told them I don’t want them to hit my tits, but they can slap my face,’ so it really shows the negotiation process, which isn’t something we’re taught anywhere else,” Howl explained.
Still, critics say alternative porn tends to replicate mainstream porn’s formulas, as can amateur porn, which some consider a voyeuristic window into other people’s bedrooms. Others say a person could use less-explicit videos to acclimate an unwilling partner into uncomfortable sexual acts.
Howl also describes how viewing rough play showed her then-partner how to approach it.
More from Asking Y, HuffPost Canada's special project on the Millennial Generation:
“Watching these people enjoying being thrown around or slapped or choked a little bit, and seeing that they really enjoy that, and that it was very consensual, and that it can be hot and very respectful really helped them to ease off and be like, ‘Yes, I can still respect you and smack your ass,’” she said.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing that we are restructuring our sexual and intimate lives and accepting alternative forms of relationships,” Sullivan said.
Dines said the repetitive portrayal of emotionally detached sex in XXX videos has changed dating behaviour among millennials in a troubling way.
“Hookup sex has replaced dating. Men don’t want to date. They want to have as much porn sex with as many women as they can,” she said.
Layden said that attitude filters down into mainstream media, and that women who buy into it will later regret it.
“It’s so damaging and toxic to tell women it really will give you an intense relationship if you let him pull your hair,” she said. “It’s a lie.”
Others say casual sex empowers them, and they point to a variety of changing factors that have affected millennials’ ideas of relationships. Howl chalks it up to this generation reconsidering gender roles and the dynamic where people “find someone, fall in love, get married, have kids, white picket fence, work forever and die.”
After Andrew got engaged to his college sweetheart, they both decided to open their relationship to other partners.
“We lost our virginity to each other and we sort of thought ‘We’re in our physical prime, maybe it’s time we should see what else is out there while we still have a chance’ while still staying committed to one another because we love each other very much,” he said.
The conversation was inspired not by porn, but by blogs, he said, another form of sexual exposure available online for the millennial generation.
He expects that as life becomes more complicated with careers and children, outside relationships will become less frequent. For now, his fiancée dates a man she loves, and Andrew looks forward to having a second girlfriend – not a slew of liaisons.
“If people enjoy hooking up, I think that’s great. Go ahead and do that if you can do it safely.”
Researchers continue to probe the relationship between between porn viewing habits and casual sex habits. Others have looked at porn’s relationship to infidelity and sex addiction. The findings are decidedly mixed.
“I don’t think we can directly attribute porn to pretty much anything, good or bad. Our social and sexual lives are complicated, and porn is an influence and must be understood as an influence,” Sullivan said.
Some insist that it can lead to infidelity, or they even consider it a form of cheating, while others aren’t so quick to agree. Internet porn has also been identified as a contributor to sex addiction.
One study found unmarried couples who watched porn together had more sexual satisfaction and a more committed relationship than if one person had watched porn in secret, although Layden says women have reported it kills intimacy.
* * *
Not only do millennials have more access to pornography than previous generations, they also have more tools than ever to make their own.
Before cellphones, webcams and digital cameras, sharing amateur porn required now-antiquated tools such as actual film, swingers ads and postage stamps, Silverberg said.
“The thing now is, we all have some smartphone that has a pretty high-quality video camera in it. You can make it and you can upload it in seconds. And of course, once it’s up, it’s gone,” he saidd.
Vanessa learned the hard way. After her 18th birthday, she shot a webcam video of herself masturbating and posted it to a popular adult site.
“I have a bit of an exhibitionist streak. I thought I wasn’t identifiable in it. I think I generally wasn’t, you couldn’t really see my face, and I was like ‘You only live once,’” she said.
She told a few close friends but didn’t forward the link, expecting it to “disappear into the depths of the Internet.” It didn’t. Word got round to a friend of a friend who saw her and said, “I think she was in porn.”
Yet Vanessa still describes the video as a positive experience, having received flattering comments online about her size although she’s more “chubby” than the typical porn star.
Eventually, the site removed the clip, likely over age verification. As she applies to grad school theology programs, she considers removing other explicit photos she has shared online under pseudonyms.
Although Vanessa feels safe in her online anonymity, Sullivan believes her generation has difficulty grasping the permanency of the Internet.
“You don’t know where things go, you can’t control them, you don’t know who has access to it and what you think is private isn’t necessarily private,” she said.
In other words, as users struggle to understand new concepts of privacy around online sex, “Don’t underestimate your ability to get screwed.”
* * *
Porn and its complexities for the millennial generation aren’t in short supply, but experts agree one thing is sorely lacking: education.
“Because unfortunately, porn is not included much in sex education and it’s not talked about much in the home, kids don’t know that (it’s fake),” Silverberg said.
Vanessa dismissed her high school’s sex ed classes as inaccurate, incomplete, outdated and just plain awful. They covered the basics — the nuts and bolts of heterosexual sex and birth control, but not much else. And she said her “sex-shaming” mother didn’t fill her in on what is essentially Gen Y’s primary source of sexual information: online pornography.
Dines would like to see a shift in education as well, “a public health approach to pornography where you have sex education that’s real, that speaks to the reality of these kids’ lives, that talks to what it means to be male in this culture, what it means to be female.”
Ultimately, Vanessa said, “There needs to be a honest discussion of ‘What do you see here, is it realistic?’”
* Names have been changed in this article. ]]>Generation Y Back Pain: Millennials' Technology Habits May Put Them At Increased Risk For Back Paintag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-11-28T09:28:18-05:002012-11-29T20:04:16-05:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
But he and others in his age group might say the same thing about the prospect of life without computers.
“My entire life is on a computer. If my computer crashed right now, I wouldn’t be a law student, I’d just be a lost little puppy with no information,” he said.
The time they spend with technology, often in poor postures, can take a toll anywhere from the lower back to the shoulders and neck, possibly leaving Gen Y more susceptible to back discomfort than previous generations, says Pam Grills, an Ottawa-based ergonomist.
“I suspect that they may be a little worse off because the tendency to spend time using computers and smartphones and tablets is exposing them to a greater level of risk,” she said, citing the discomfort caused by “repeated wear and tear, day after day after day.“
Gen Y first planted itself in front of desktop computers in elementary school. In adolescence, they spent hours messaging each other on ICQ, MSN and Facebook. Today, they are at the forefront of a trend that sees Canadians spending more time online — 45 hours a month, on average — than users in any other country, according to a 2012 trends report by marketing research company comScore.
Young Canadians contributed to that growth with huge social media use and online video consumption on a variety of devices. The “Canada Digital Future In Focus” report found that in the fourth quarter of 2011, young people aged 18 to 24 spent 10.8 hours a month on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, up 67 per cent from the previous year. Canadians under the age of 35 accounted for 57 per cent of all videos viewed online.
In short, most millennials spend a large chunk of their waking hours using electronic devices.
Doing so in unhealthy positions, bent forward over keyboards or smartphones with curled upper backs, for instance, can over time lead to problems such as muscle strain, stiffness and nerve compression that can result in discomfort, Grills says.
And as people rely more and more on computers, she expects to see millennials experiencing more of these symptoms if they don’t take preventative steps, such as setting up workspaces properly.
Story Continues Under Gallery..
MacIsaac likens the technology in his life to a “security blanket.” His devices serve as his calendar, notebook and textbooks, not to mention his social connection to the rest of the world via Facebook, Twitter and Skype. At home or in the library, his laptop usually sits lower than eye level, so he leans forward and slouches over it. His neck strains from repeatedly looking down.
Every now and then he will make a conscious decision to sit up straight, he said, but eventually he slumps over again. MacIsaac uses his computer “literally all day at school from 9 to 3,” and will stay on it at home until about 8 p.m.
Such habits might concern Dr. Benjamin C. Amick III, a professor of behavioural sciences and epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health, and scientific director and senior scientist at the Institute for Work and Health in Ontario. He found that college and graduate students who engage in “binge computing”— working at computers for extended periods of time without a break — have an increased risk of reporting musculoskeletal symptoms that can develop in the back, shoulders, neck, and even the arms and hands.
Desktops and laptops can “anchor” people to desks, he said, as can email and video platforms such as Skype.
“People can literally sit at their desks for eight to 12 hours without moving. All they have to have is a couple of energy drinks,” he said.
Doing so is a big mistake, according to Dr. Karen Jacobs, a clinical professor in occupational therapy at Boston University’s Sargent College. Taking breaks is key to reducing discomfort, she says, urging people to do so for two or three minutes every 20 to 30 minutes of computing activity. This can help alleviate musculoskeletal discomfort that may occur when seated at a computer.
Unfortunately for many millennials, regular breaks from technology aren’t always top of mind.
Even at lunch, MacIsaac said, he will eat at his laptop in a common area at school and continue to work.
“It’s kind of a weird social setting. Even if you’re sitting down with people for an hour at lunch, everyone’s talking as they’re on their computer,” he said.
If time spent on devices can mess up your back, so can a sedentary lifestyle.
Of 1,004 millennials surveyed by HuffPost Canada, 26 per cent said the lack of physical activity is the biggest health challenge facing their generation, topping a list that included mental health (19 per cent), addiction (17 per cent) and obesity (16 per cent).
However, Dr. Amick believes changes in technology may spell relief for millennials who work at computers. The proliferation of tablets and mobile devices probably will unchain people from their desks, possibly resulting in more time moving around, he said. This might be beneficial to millennials, particularly since he expects they will not work on handheld devices for hours on end the way they do on desktops or laptops.
“New technologies are going to change the way people work. They’re not going to sit in one unsupported posture for extended periods of time,” he said.
On the downside, mobile devices raise the possibility of different kinds of harmful postures, such as holding devices at a low position and looking down at them, which may cause more discomfort in the neck, shoulders and upper back.
Reducing technology use may not be in the cards for ‘Generation Wired’ — if anything they are likely to become more connected through gadgets. But ways to limit back problems may be on the horizon.
Dr. Jacobs hopes younger generations will figure out how to use technology in healthier ways. For instance, elementary school kids should be taught how to properly set up work stations. And technology itself can be used to encourage betters choices, she said, pointing to an app she developed for mobile devices that reminds users to take breaks and stretch.
But without a major public awareness push, back problems may only increase, she explained.
Dr. Amick suggests that workers need to look seriously at new technologies and decide what their digital lives will look like in the future.
“It gives us the opportunity to reinvent how we work,” he said, “and to really think again about how we want to do some types of work to make it healthier.”
]]>Marisol Simoes, Co-Owner Of Racy Ottawa Eateries Kinki And Mambo, Guilty Of Criminal Libel (PHOTOS)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-09-07T13:12:07-04:002012-09-07T14:52:16-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/made a fraudulent online adult dating profile of customer Elayna Katz and sent a distasteful email to her employer, the Toronto Sun reported.
In the case, Katz said that she had a bad dining experience at Simoe’s Mambo in 2009, which included poor service and a bungled order. Katz later tried to contact Simoe several times, testimony showed. She also shared her critiques on restaurantthing.com, to which Simoes posted a rebuttal.
Simoes also set up a fake adultcyberdating.com profile for Katz with similar claims.
The restaurateur's criminal defamation charge is an unusual one, as libel usually falls under civil law. Criminal charges are typically brought in only the most egregious, damaging cases,
]]>Our Greatest Person: Michelle Coombs Of Elizabeth Fry Torontotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-09-07T07:11:07-04:002012-09-07T10:49:11-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/Elizabeth Fry Toronto, work has always been most meaningful when it has the potential to change someone's life.
Early in her career, she helped adults with developmental disabilities learn basic skills like brushing their teeth or crossing the road. Then she worked in subsidized housing, giving previously homeless people a sense of community.
Now 43, Coombs works at Elizabeth Fry Toronto, helping support women who have had run-ins with criminal justice or face that risk. But while the organization changes women’s lives, the times are also changing. New pressures have arisen in the past few years that make assisting at-risk women more challenging.
For instance, at a time when a poor economy weighs on all organizations, the government has put charitable institutions such as hers under a microscope, Coombs says.
“There’s extra pressure to find additional resources to do the work. And then you’re coming under greater scrunity as a charity,” she explained. “I don’t think it’s actually telling anybody what a great job charities are doing.”
So in a way, it’s part of Coombs’ job to spread the word about how Elizabeth Fry Toronto assists roughly 5,000 women a year. She oversees daily operations, including managing a staff that handles program enhancement, human resources and finances, to name a few. She also engages and educates her community, and imagines the organization’s next big steps according to larger challenges that arise.
One monumental challenge recently cropped up: Bill C-10, the Harper government’s omnibus crime bill, which passed in spring 2012 and imposes tougher penalties and more restrictions for various offenders. While it’s early to analyze the fledgling legislation’s effects, Coombs expects it won’t just be tough on crime – it will be tough on criminalized women, who most often commit crimes related to poverty and are the primary caregivers in their families.
“When a woman is impacted, the children are impacted, and if children go into child protective services, the chances of them ending up in the criminal justice system are greater. It’s a perpetual cycle that can happen in families,” she said.
Criminalizing women can also have detrimental effects on their job prospects and on the economy.
“If more people end up having records, that’s more people who may have difficulty finding employment,” Coombs pointed out, particularly as women are more likely than men to apply for jobs that require background checks.
Not to mention incarcerating a woman can cost $150,000 per year or more, excluding costs for rehabilitation and transition back into society, Coombs notes.
Her solution? In a word: prevention. Although Elizabeth Fry Toronto, as well as offices for the organization across the country, have consistently worked to find alternatives to the criminal justice system and educate the public, it has focused more intently on those solutions over the past three years.
And to hear Coombs tell it, such initiatives are just one part of the organization’s success story; people devoted to the cause are the real life-changers.
“The incredible strength that everyone has had along the way... (and) the commitment that people have exhibited to do this work is incredible to me,” she said.
This plane's critical message for Stephen Harper just won't fly. At least that's what the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) says the RCMP conveyed on Saturday.
The union has accused the RCMP of grounding a plane it hired due to its political message: A banner that read “StephenHarperNousDéteste.ca.” That translates to "Stephen Harper Hates Us."
In the past two weeks, planes with the banner flew over other communities as a part of the 'We Are All Affected' campaign.]]>Habiba Cooper Diallo: Advocating For Women's Health In Africatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-08-20T07:05:00-04:002012-08-28T17:58:01-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
“They had endured one of the most horrific afflictions known to humankind... and had the courage and willingness to share such devastating stories with me,” the 16-year-old student recalled in an email to The Huffington Post Canada.
Returning to her native Canada from this trip to Africa in March 2012, Cooper Diallo founded Women's Health Organization International (WHOI) and started to file for its legal status. Its primary goal is to encourage women of the African Diaspora to take health care matters into their own hands.
“If disenfranchised women can achieve full autonomy over their medical experiences, growth, and most importantly, sustainability of effective health care resources -- for example, health care education and programming -- becomes feasible,” she maintains.
Obstetric fistula is essentially a hole that develops between the vagina and rectum, or the vagina and bladder, due to extended labour without proper treatment. It results in fecal or urinary incontinence and can also cause medical complications such as kidney infection, infertility, nerve damage, and can even result in social isolation. In most cases, the infant dies.
Cooper Diallo, originally from Toronto and currently living in Halifax, first became interested in women’s health, particularly obstetric fistula, as a pre-teen. In 2008, she was moved by a news article about Anafghat Ayouba of Niger, who developed the condition as a pre-teen herself, after being in labour for four painful days.
“It was Anafghat's sheer courage and perseverance that the article communicated to me best. Following her treatment, she returned home where she became a staunch advocate for women's health issues and education,” Cooper Diallo wrote.
Cooper Diallo has taken it upon herself to make sure that doesn't happen. Driven by her passion for women’s health, she started to spread the word about obstetric fistula through speeches, such as her performance at Toronto’s The Word On The Street in October 2011. She then embarked on her trip to Ethiopia and saw the affliction first-hand.
In April 2012, Cooper Diallo dedicated her sweet sixteen to the cause, raising about $1,500 for online education and awareness. WHOI is now seven members strong.
"A seed has been planted and we, meaning the members of WHOI and myself, are tending to the shoots," she wrote.]]>Our Greatest Person: Lekan Olawoye Of For Youth Initiative In Torontotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-08-17T22:45:50-04:002012-08-28T17:54:29-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
“I went home, distraught, and spoke to my brother and I said something has to change,” he said.
Olawoye did. Following his brother’s example, he became interested in programs benefiting youth, eventually earning his BA in social work and becoming executive director of For Youth Initiative in Toronto. And while incidents such as the recent Danzig Street and Eaton Centre shootings still occur in the city, he continues to work with at-risk youth and rectify what he believes to be the cause of gun violence.
“It doesn’t start with someone pulling a gun and shooting. Many things have happened before that time; we’re talking employment, we’re talking dropping out of high school,” he said. “To this day it’s still just issues in communities that lead to violence.”
Such was the case in Olawoye’s Rexdale neighbourhood, which he describes as low-income with a high population of immigrants and single-parent families.
“It’s like any other neighbourhood, except there’s not of money in that community, and there’s not a lot of support,” he said. And without support, negative situations snowball.
“You may get into selling drugs because there are no jobs in your community. As a result of getting into selling drugs, then you get into issues... Unfortunately you get into street justice,” he explained.
That’s where For Youth Initiative comes in. The program operates in Weston Mt-Dennis, a “priority neighbourhood," and has provided support services and leadership for youth since 1995. It offers space for free recreation and one-on-one support, in addition to programs for newly-landed immigrants and girls who have unique issues.
Rewards aren’t immediate, especially as kids enter their high school years and become difficult to reach. It takes at least six months for young people to open up and trust mentors, Olawoye pointed out, and much longer to solve systemic issues leading to gun violence.
It’s a point of view Olawoye has explained to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty as part of his 30-day report around reducing violence following this summer’s devastating and fatal shootings.
While many community leaders and organizations have thrown their two cents in, Olawoye met with the premier and recommended facilitating a government strategy that unites programs to see a kid through childhood, difficult teen years and eventually into adulthood. He expects McGuinty to reveals his official strategy mid-week.
As for immediate solutions to Toronto’s gun problem, he acknowledges the need for a police presence, albeit a balanced one.
“Police will never ever stop gun violence. They won’t. They’ll catch a perpetrator after it happens. But they will not stop it from happening,” he remarked. “Of course we want to take guns off the street, but we’re not dealing with the root issue.”
Having supportive education, employment and mentorship programs, however, might resolve the underlying causes of Toronto’s gun violence, and save the lives of people like Olawoye’s high school friends, he argues.
“If we had the right structures... that are actually providing mentorship to the most hard-to-reach young people, there’s a few that I would guarantee would still be here today and be in a good place.” ]]>Greatest Person: Mark DeMontis Of Courage Canadatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-08-13T07:00:00-04:002012-08-28T17:58:35-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
DeMontis, a 25-year-old Toronto, Ont. native, was diagnosed with Leber's Optic Neuropathy at age 17, only one year away from playing NCAA hockey with dreams of going pro. He slowly lost the central vision in both eyes, leaving him legally blind. But the experience drove him to make the most of life and eventually start Courage Canada in 2008, a non-profit organization that provides blind youth with the opportunity to play hockey.
DeMontis recalls staying in Toronto's SickKids Hospital following his diagnosis, alongside terminally-ill children who would never leave.
“I just found it very tough for me to give up over a little bit of lost sight when a lot of these children are being diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses,” he said.
Weeks after he left, he took up blind hockey, which uses a plastic puck that makes noise players can follow. But DeMontis soon learned not every blind child has access to the sport.
“Every kid, no matter whether you’re sighted or not, should get to have that opportunity to play one of the national pastimes,” he stated with conviction. "If all it takes is for one puck to make noise, there’s no reason why we can’t be providing thousands of individuals around the world who are blind and partially sighted with that opportunity.”
Courage Canada, assisted by CNIB and Accessible Media Inc., now works collaboratively with school boards to bring together blind youth and start small hockey programs primarily in Ontario, B.C., and Quebec. It assists roughly 150 kids, a considerable number in the blind community.
While the program teaches skills on the ice, it also teaches kids life lessons.
“It’s very important for these youngsters to be able to speak up for what they need... to make their life more accessible or to essentially live a better life,” DeMontis said.
He hopes those lessons carry over into adulthood, where he acknowledges blind people face significant challenges, such as a staggering unemployment rate.
The employment rate for Canadians with seeing limitations stood at 34.7 per cent as of 2006, according to StatsCan. Over half of the 816,250 Canadians with vision limitations said their condition limited the amount or kind of work they could do. A majority, 95.5 per cent, said vision was not their only limitation (many cited pain and limited mobility). One in five people with severe seeing limitations stated they had unmet aid requirements.
While not all are able to do so, DeMontis took it upon himself to create his own opportunities. A year after founding Courage Canada, he inline skated from Toronto to Vancouver to raise funds and awareness, and skated again in 2011 from Halifax to Toronto.
“I said, ‘I’m doing this and no one’s telling me I’m not doing this,’" he recalled.
In addition to his Courage Canada interests, he works as a reporter for Accessible Media Inc., has a speaking business, invests in real estate, and is also writing a book and creating a documentary about his experiences. He encourages others to become successful by taking matters into their own hands.
“Don’t ever shy away from starting something... If there’s an area in your life that’s a passion to you or you have an interest in, there should be no reason why you cannot find an opportunity to start a business with it,” he said. ]]>'I Am Fat' YouTube Video: Meghan Tonjes Responds To Fat Haterstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2012-07-04T11:13:00-04:002013-04-07T20:38:16-04:00Jacqueline Delangehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacqueline-delange/
The creator of Project Lifesize, a group that discusses body image, created a YouTube video titled ‘I AM FAT!’ after getting some YouTube comments disparaging her body image.
“I’m not offended by you calling me fat. I am fat -- that is a fact,” she says in the video.
“People telling me ‘you’re disgusting,’ ‘give up,’ ‘your parents could never love you looking the way you do,’ ‘no one could ever love you looking the way you do,’ so I get a lot of that,” she said.
While Tonjes now says the word "fat" is an accurate descriptor, she protests the negative associations people have with the word.
“Call me lazy, call me unmotivated, call me ugly, call me sloppy, call me unhygienic, call me all these other things that people associate with the word fat. That is not true. You never know where somebody is in their journey with their weight,” Tonjes says in the video.
Such associations are widespread, Arya M. Sharma, MD/PhD, FRCPC of the Canadian Obesity Network noted.
Obesity also factors into the workplace, as attractive people earn more money than average or unattractive people, The Economist reported.
The fight against stigmatizing obesity reappeared in Canada last week with Emily Walker's blog titled 'I'm fat, Vancouver. Get over it.'
"I’m tired of feeling like a second-class citizen in a city I’ve grown to love in spite of everything," she wrote. "Well, this is it. I’m done with being made to feel bad about my body."