Executive Director's Report 2006

Valerie Price

The end of one year's activities and the beginning of another is always a time for reflection on what has been achieved. This has been a productive year at MARL, the highlights being the completion of two significant projects.

Over the past two years, we have been developing a new workshop, Responding to Hate, as a companion to Hate - What Have I Got to Do With It? which MARL has offered in high school classrooms for several years. Responding to Hate was completed this spring and launched in Winnipeg classrooms with great success. The workshop emphasizes personal responsibility and teaching youth to act against hate by being responsive bystanders. We are now marketing the two workshops as a human rights education program called Youth Against Hate. This series of workshops is highly participatory and engaging. In the process, students uncover practical actions to respond to hate and improve the situation. In addition to the new workshop itself, we have redeveloped the facilitator's guide and developed student booklets, a teacher resource booklet, and materials for promoting the workshops to teachers. We look forward to taking these workshops into Winnipeg high schools in the fall.

The revision of the Under 18 Handbook: A Legal Guide for Manitoba Teens is now complete. The revised edition is now available in every secondary school in Manitoba, in youth-serving community agencies and on MARL's web site. Distribution of the handbook continues as we have been inundated with requests for additional copies from schools and community organizations all over the province. This year we will be producing the handbook in French for use in français and immersion schools as well as francophone community agencies.

This year we continued to participate with other organizations in the planning of significant community events including December 10^th International Human Rights Day, March 21^st the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and June 27^th Canadian Multiculturalism Day. A highlight this year was to be able to inaugurate the Dr. Sybil Shack Memorial Human Rights Youth Award. The award, sponsored jointly by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and MARL, was presented to the Maples Collegiate Unity Group at the Human Rights Day luncheon on December 10^th in recognition of their efforts over the last eleven years to promote harmony and equality in their school and community.

While this year saw the end after five years of MARL's participation in the Human Rights and Holocaust Studies Program, we are pleased to have the opportunity to develop a new human rights education program that we hope will reach out broadly to Winnipeg youth in the near future.

Not only is this a time to reflect on achievements, it is a time to express appreciation. I would like to thank the members of the board for their support for the organization and for me in my efforts. In particular, as his term as President draws to a close, I would like to thank Ken for his steady leadership over the past four years (and his quirky sense of humour). I would also like to thank all the volunteers that do the work of our committees, help out with the newsletter and web site and help with the bingos. Finally, thank you to the United Way of Winnipeg, and the many project funders that make our work possible.