Executive Directors Report 2011

MARL has had another successful year with a lot of focus on networking, building relationships with the community and other organizations and promoting the Human right’s education Program.  Estelle’s report has identified many of the highlights and you will find further details on our programs and projects in the rest of the Annual Report which I hope you will take a moment to read. 

MARL awarded this year’s Sybil Shack Human Rights Youth Award at an award ceremony on December 8th, 2011 at the Manitoba Legislature to the Voices Leadership Team; Jasmine Cowley and Malcolm Christian for their fantastic work in developing the ‘Free Hug Day’ campaign.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child outlines a number of things that children/youth should be provided with in order to grow and develop to their best potential, one of those things is adults to provide care when parents are incapable of doing so.  ‘Voices: Manitoba's Youth in Care Network’ works to provide support, encouragement and advocacy for youth in care.  Jasmine and Malcolm identified an area of concern in Manitoba's child welfare system; being that the shortage of life long foster families for youth in care leads to youth in care not receiving positive touch on a daily basis, essentially not being hugged on a daily basis.  They then brainstormed a solution to spread information about this problem, an information day held at the forks called ‘Free Hug day’.  There they handed out information pamphlets, answered questions and provided over 100 hugs to the public and youth.  Jasmine and Malcolm also videotaped the event and compiled and edited the footage into a video which can be seen on the Voices' website and on YouTube.  The opening quote of the video states that we need “4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance, and 12 a day for growth”.   The video is a very powerful depiction of the preparation and implementation of the plan developed by these two youths and it generates a highly emotive responsive from everyone who views it.  MARL was please to present this award to Jasmine and Malcolm, two incredible youth leaders, for their very impressive commitment to the rights and needs of youth in care.  

The Human Rights Education Program underwent a few changes this past year.  Nadine McCaughan (Program Developer) was unable to continue on with us due to health issues.  However, Vicki Vaags (Program Developer) joined MARL’s team in her place.  Vicki and Roland Dion (Program Coordinator) have worked hard to make this year’s program the best year yet.  Over the past year both have made many new connections and promoted the program widely to schools, students and the community, which has led to the success Estelle noted in her report.  We were also successful in receiving additional grant funding to expand the Youth Leadership part of the program to serve both French and English schools, which will be beginning in the 2011-2012 program year.  As well, we have successfully completed the development part of the program in creating a Teacher’s Toolkit resource for teaching human rights in the classroom with lesson plans from grade 9 through 12; this is now posted on our website for teachers, educators and community leaders to access.  I would like to thank Nadine, Vicki and Roland for their hard work and commitment to this program.

March 21 is the United Nations Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.  In honour of this day MARL has traditionally worked with other organizations and coalitions to put on an event or has hosted a small panel discussion event ourselves.  This past year however, MARL embarked on a major undertaking in creating the 1st annual ‘March 21st: Human Rights Film Festival’.  This was a week-long event that drew more than 1000 people to see a variety of films, workshops and discussion sessions focusing on current and local human rights and social justice issues.  The festival in its 1st year was well received and decently attended.  We are looking forward to continuing this momentum and holding an even larger festival in the 2012 year.

This year MARL also released 2 issues of our newsletter, hosted a panel discussion on the issue of hate speech as part of the U of M faculty of law distinguished speaker series and spoke at many other community events, workshops and conferences.  As well MARL worked to create a Social Justice Club program for youth that is now running in several Winnipeg and rural schools.  We also participated in the 10th Annual Run For Rights on Saturday June 4th, 2011; this event raises awareness and money in support of Winnipeg organizations working for Social Justice and Human Rights such as MARL.

Last but not least, MARL has taken the rains when it comes to organizing the annual celebration for Canadian Multiculturalism Day, promoting multiculturalism, respect and diversity.  This high profile event that has traditionally seen between 1000-5000 people in attendance annually was once organized by several groups, and MARL only played the role of being active on the organizing committee.  Through the years however, several of the other organizations have not been able to continue with this time commitment, as such MARL has picked up the slack.  Last year we organized a smaller celebration event at the Portage Place mall in the center court.  However, this year we are responsible for organizing the larger scale event that has been organized in the past; a day of free, fun and family friendly activities at the Forks.  Please join us on Saturday June 25th, 2011 Under the Canopy at ‘The Forks’ for a chance to celebrate and experience Manitoba’s rich cultural diversity through Music, Dance, Artwork, and Cultural displays.   

Thank you to the board members and volunteers for supporting MARL’s to do this important work and thank you to all the funders who make our work possible.

-Cindy Murdoch