Immigrant Women's Multicultural Expo

More than 300 participants including representatives from the Provincial, municipal governments, representatives of community organizations and cultural communities leaders, packed the Cross-ways in Common Community Centre on Saturday March 15th for The Immigrant Women's Association of Manitoba (IWAM)sponsored multicultural expo. Five cultural groups participated in sharing their cultural history, music, dance and food with the general Winnipeg community. These groups included Afghanistan, Somali, Sudanese, Iraq and Iran cultural groups.


Participants were treated to diverse tastes, scents and sounds of these groups. Women were dressed in cultural outfits so intricate and fine that it would seem that to make one such outfit could take a year or more. These outfits were colorful, flowing and beautiful to look at, others were regal looking with intricate designs and stitches.

Most of the cultural dances were done in circles. Watching the dance movements revealed striking similarities among the targeted cultures. It confirmed the fact that the cultures are more similar than different.

The event was organized by IWAM to help to bridge cultural understanding among and between immigrants and the mainstream Winnipeg population in a fun and non-threatening manner.

Those who attended expressed that the event was highly informative, enjoyable and successful. Women danced and laughed and made contact with people different than themselves. They called for more such events to be planned to bring women together in a spirit of camaraderie.

Gun Totting Student in Nelson Collegiate Winnipeg

I'm sure many parents are skittish about their children in our institutions of learning which have in the recent past become dangerous places for our children. Hearing that a student has been caught with a gun in school is outrageous to say the least. I think Canada and the West have to wake up to protecting youths. Youths are far more intelligent than their parents were at their age, yet we treat them with kid gloves looking for ways to excuse their behaviours.

We need to take a haqrd look at what students are up to. I think it may be time to bring back dress codes in school and make schools more disciplined places where students go to learn and not just hang out. The teaching staff sometimes fear to take any action for fear of being mistreated by parents or being fired for standing up for something. That needs to change.

When children or adults break the law they should not be given a free break. They should be made to pay for it with a penalty that fits the crime. Whatever the penalty is, the taxpayer should not be paying for it. These criminals should work for their upkeep, not just sit in jail and watch TV or build big muscles with mindless exercise. Let them do hard labour.

Louis Riel Holiday February 17th


Today is Louis Riel Day, the new holiday in Manitoba. I think it is fitting recognition. Manitoba is an important and Louis Riel is a hero to many Aboriginal people. He fought for their rights and respect and was killed for it. He killed many too but as freedom fighters and during a war everyone is fair game. According to Manitoba history it was Riel who instigated the civil war and for which he was deemed a traitor and the reason given for hanging him in 1885. But he was the proud Metis leader of the Aboriginal people. At that time it was kill or be killed. We know that the power structure can be brutal when they feel their power is threatened and all their stolen wealth are at risk of being taken away, people get really weird and like they get out of their humanity and become a beast. Louis Riel killed legitimately. Some say that he is a murderer and were against naming a holiday after him but they do not get the picture. They do not understand the pain of discrimination and racism and being the underdog of society. I feel the Manitoba Government is right in its choice. It’s about time we recognized our Aboriginal contribution to the Province. Some Aboriginal people say they are in awe that the day was named after Riel. They could not believe it but time wears away even the stones we walk upon. Time is really a healer.
It is great to have a holiday

YouTube - A BLACK WOMAN'S SMILE BY TY GRAY EL: SPOKEN WORD

YouTube - A BLACK WOMAN'S SMILE BY TY GRAY EL: SPOKEN WORD

Winter's Humour

Winter, winter, winter. Some people love to hate it. Many of us use it to break the ice in conversation and sometimes in the process it cracks our frozen lips.
Old man winter I wonder why they call winter old man. Only man doesn't have the bite and sting of winter. This is a young man with all his ozones in tact. When he gets you boy, he gets you good.

This young man's kisses burn you and make you weep. Even grown men's eyes water to his stinging touch. Young man winter must be one of those newer varieties of sex because he does not discriminate. He makes a play for anyone who is foolish enough not to keep themselves covered properly.

A few days ago it was 45 to 50 degrees below and I had to walk 15 minutes in the cold facing the wind. It was bitterly cold with the wind in my face but I loved it, I relished in it and loved the feel of the skin as it got so cold that I began to feel a sensation like needles sticking me in the face. I saw wow; I am getting a free acupuncture. I reduced my pace so that I can enjoy it even more.
Growing up in the tropics all we had was boring rain and sun, mud and water, mosquitoes and flies and creepy crawlies all year round. That drove me to pieces. There was no relief until I came to North America and now the season changes and as soon as you begin to get tired of one season the next season slip away except young man winter always tries to get a little more overstaying his welcome
Yeah winter is great. It gives you that fresh, crisp feeling of a frozen lettuce and somehow people look younger in the winter then when summer comes and you thaw all the wrinkles appear like magic. This is another great reason to like winter. It keeps you younger looking. But when you get into the homes with all their artificial heats your can turn on you again. It can take on the appearance of a reptile with huge scales. That can be quite a scary picture. I am sure you've seen it and you know what I mean. We all have seen this animal and it's not nice. We wonder where did it come from, where did my fresh young skin disappear to. Oh the joys of winter.

Black History Month

This is a month that is celebrated by Black communities all over the world. It is a time to showcase our contributions, history and culture to the world.

Some may say why Black History Month, why not White History Month, well the reason is simple, every month is White History month including February. We live and breathe whit history and this is all over the world. Wherever the white man went he has left his historical footprints.

I remember growing up in the Caribbean I never learned anything about my history but of European and British history. Blacks were not counted and still not counted in these parts of the world though we have contributed a lot to the development of the west. Many young people are not aware of our contribution because it was excluded form the books. This gives them a chance to learn that blacks have a right to be here, they have paid their due. For more than 300 years they gave free labour that helped developed some of the most important institutions in the West, that have made many people rich. Today's youths should learn that blacks worked as slaves on plantations, in homes and cotton fields. They were bound to these activities through cuel bosses/masters.

They have to know that Harriet Tubman is a historical figure in Canada. She brough many slaves from the USA over to Canada with the help of Quakers through the Underground Railway. Those people settled in Ontario - Chatham, Owen Sounds and around that place.

Blacks were first enslaved in Quebec City. While they were not treated as badly as in the United States, they were still treated bad enough to make you cringe. They were beaten and whipped if they stepped out of line or tried to gain freedom.

Did you know a black man was whipped if he as much as looked at a White woman in what could have been interpreted as a suggestive manner?

Blacks were dehumanized and white children were taught that Blacks were not human beings as they were but something inferior.

During Black History Month, it is important to relive these memories so that it never be allowed to happen again.

CAFE TALK ROUND UP
It's Saturday morning. I look outside my window, My car is totally covered in white. I return to bed. Should I cancel my appointed. I lost that thingy you use to brush snow off the car. It fell off my car one day in the middle of traffic. I had forgetton it on the roof of the car. When it fell there were cars coming from every direction so I had to drive away and leave my expensive $9.00 brush. What am I going to do today to get the snow off?

The few weeks since I lost it I would brush off the drizzle of snow with my mitt cover. This is too much snow to brush off. After all we had a blizzard last night and it is now minus 24C. What am I going to do? I decide I have to get up and write this post and then I have to haul myself up and get going. Perhaps leave as is and hitch a ride on the bus and buy another brush. I have several appointments.

By the way there are lots of stuff happening in good old Winnipeg this weekend. The cafe talk topics are about Black History Month and all the activities going on. There is a play at St. Boniface Cathedral today at 2:30 Deep Fried Curried Perogy, produced by a Filipina woman - married to a man of mixed background who have a child who is United Nations. What a wonderful thing. This is what you call diversity. I am looking forward to seeing this show.

Another big thing happening this weekend is CKUW.FM ch 713 community radio is having a fund raising drive. This station needs community support to improve. This has been going on all week. Each year they have this fundraising drive where people call in to the station and make a pledge. Hey, you gotta a minute and a dime? Then call in a make a pledge. It's a great community resource that needs your support. Call 774 6877 now.

Below is a article about Jane McBee a Winnipegger who will soon be on her way to Africa to visit projects started by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to help grandmothers who are left to raise their grandchildren, orphaned by the AIDS epidemic which took the lives of the children's parents, cope with their joyous burden. Joyous because the grandmothers are no doubt happy that they are around to take care of their grandchildren but a burden because many are old and have little resources for this huge task.
Stephen Lewis is a champion of these grandmothers and listening to him speak you know he is someone who cares about these women. He has singlehandedly brought the plight of the grandmothers to international attention.
What the article does not say is that the cost of the trip is not borne by the Foundation but by the grandmothers themselves. All the monies raised by the S.L. Foundation on behalf of the grandmothers are spent on projects to help them. Jane and the other 11 grandmothers chosen to go to African under the SL Foundation banner have to raise their own funds which can amount to some $7-8,000 to cover the cost of their trip and accommodation.
Jane is holding her first fundraiser on January 30th at the Forks Market 3rd floor.
It's $20 per person. Maiko Watson will be donating her service by singing a couple of songs.
If you can't make it on the 30th, you can always contact Enid at 253-0066 of Grands'n'More, the local group to which Jane belongs, with your donation.

By JULIE HORBAL, SUN MEDIA


Jane McBee will be going to Africa on a program of the Stephen Lewis Foundation called Grandmothers to Grandmothers. (C. PROCAYLO/SUN MEDIA)
Jane McBee says she always felt her life was leading up to something more, but the Winnipeg grandmother never knew what that something was.

Until now, that is.

McBee, 62, was chosen late last year by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to take a three-week educational trip to sub-Saharan Africa next month with 12 other grandmothers from across Canada.

Yesterday she told the Winnipeg Sun she feels the trip will fulfil her purpose.

"All the changes in my life have just happened," said McBee, who leaves on Feb. 25. "I just felt there was something else I needed to do and this is just something that's meant to be."

The trip is part of the foundation's Grandmothers to Grandmothers program, which works as a sort of exchange between Canadian grannies and those in underdeveloped regions of Africa.



McBee is scheduled to travel through Uganda, parts of South Africa and also Swaziland, where she and the other grandmothers will visit their African counterparts and see first-hand their hardships.

Grandmothers in those parts, McBee said, are often forced to bury their HIV-infected children and in turn raise their orphaned grandkids. Most of the time, she said, they do it with little or no resources.

"They're the life force of the children," she said. "And they do it with nothing."

Since the program launched 15 months ago, the grannies have collected more than $2 million already.

McBee said she fully realizes that the trip is no holiday.

"It will be a life-changing experience," she said.

Attention Black Women of the World
If you are not getting the love you deserve you might want to pick up this book and read it. There appears to be a conspiracy to deny Black women this right. A brand new book by Pearl Jr

Kwanzaa - A Celebration of African Heritage



Kwanzaa is a time to celebrate African heritage and further strengthen core family values using seven African principles: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity) and imani (faith). It's also a time to entrench oneself in four decades of tradition.


Kwanzaa, which means "fresh fruits," is a week-long celebration that runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. In this time, a different principle is celebrated each night through African proverbs, songs, chants and gift giving. Gifts normally include a traditional African heritage symbol and a book to stress ethnic values.

Kwanzaa was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, then the leader of the Us Organization, a black nationalist group. His goal: "To give blacks an alternative holiday to Christmas." Today Karenga is a professor of black studies at California State University. The seven principles of Kwanzaa also correspond to Karenga's notion that "the sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black," which he asserts in his book The Quotable Karenga.


During Kwanzaa, families decorate their homes with harvest symbols and other ethnic artifacts and dress in traditional African garb that exude the colors of Kwanzaa--black (to symbolize the people), red (to represent the bloodshed and struggle for equality), and green (representing hope for the future).

Traditionally, there is a central decoration that holds seven candles: three red candles, three green candles and one black candle (which is lit on the first night).

It's Not over Yet - Celebrate the African Heritage Season - Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a time to celebrate African heritage and further strengthen core family values using seven African principles: umoja (unity), kujichagulia (self-determination), ujima (collective work and responsibility), ujamaa (cooperative economics), nia (purpose), kuumba (creativity) and imani (faith). It's also a time to entrench oneself in four decades of tradition.
In 1966 Dr. Ron Maulana Karenga adapted the principles of the African harvest festival to create the African American celebration known as Kwanzaa. He emphasized that the same principles could be used in building strong and wholesome communities.

Kwanzaa, which means "fresh fruits," is a week-long celebration that runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. In this time, a different principle is celebrated each night through African proverbs, songs, chants and gift giving. Gifts normally include a traditional African heritage symbol and a book to stress ethnic values.
During Kwanzaa, families decorate their homes with harvest symbols and other ethnic artifacts and dress in traditional African garb that exude the colors of Kwanzaa--black (to symbolize the people), red (to represent the bloodshed and struggle for equality), and green (representing hope for the future).



Traditionally, there is a central decoration that holds seven candles: three red candles, three green candles and one black candle (which is lit on the first night).

AlterNet: Blogs: Video: "It's a Blunderful Life" Starring George W. Bush [VIDEO]

A National Treasure has Slipped off this reality

Our beloved Oscar Peterson, a national treasure and one of jazz's most recorded musicians, both as leader and accompanist died at the age of 82. Peterson rose from working-class beginnings in Montreal -- where his father, a railway porter, let him pursue music only if he promised to be "the best" -- to become a major influence on generations of top-flight musicians.
"He was very shy, very down to earth. You didn't know you were with a world musician by any means," said Hazel McCallion, a friend and the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario, a Toronto suburb where Peterson lived.
McCallion said that Peterson died late on Sunday and that she was informed by Peterson's family. CBC Television said he died at home of kidney failure.
Since blasting onto the world stage with a famous appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1949, the beefy high school dropout amassed armfuls of honorary degrees and awards, including a 1997 Grammy for Lifetime Achievement and an International Jazz Hall of Fame Award.
Canada made him a Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor, as well as the first living Canadian to be depicted on a stamp.
Peterson kept an exhaustive touring schedule throughout his career with groups featuring such players as bassist and longtime collaborator Ray Brown, drummer Ed Thigpen and guitarist Herb Ellis.
The work of this musicians will continue in the likes of Holly Cole and other top brass Jazz artists in the city. He will be studied and remembered for his excellent skills in this particular musical genre Jazz.

Dr. Charles Quist-Adade, a faculty member of Kwantlen university and prolific writer and journalist was last night elected president of the Ghana Canada Association of British Columbia at the Executive Plaza hotel in Burnaby.

Charles is also the newly appointed Managing Editor of Afri-Can magazine, published from Burnaby, Canada, by Sierra Leonean journalist and writer Gibril Koroma.

According to its web site, the GCABC was formed in 1986 by a group of Ghanaians living in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is a non governmental and a non profit organization.

GCABC cooperates with other humanitarian organizations and communities but has no political or religious affiliations. The aim of the association is to promote friendship, co-operation and cultural exchanges between the peoples of Canada and Ghana. The association aims at increasing the knowledge of Canadians about Ghana and developing countries in general. It aims at influencing the society’s thinking, the authorities and the individual’s sense of responsibility towards the problems of developing countries.

Charles Quist-Adade(pictured)was born in Ghana, where he obtained a Diploma in Journalism from the Ghana Institute of Journalism before earning an M.A. in Mass Communication from Leningrad State University and Ph.D. in Sociology from Petersburg State University, both in Russia. Prior to his arrival in Canada, Dr. Quist-Adade worked as a newspaper 2004 Black Community Leadership Award Recipient journalist and radio broadcaster for the Ghanaian Times and Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, as a press officer for the Hungarian Embassy in Accra, Ghana, and as a correspondent for the London (U.K.) - based syndicated Gemini News Service in Leningrad. He was a contributor to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) African Service and for London-based magazines, including New African, Africa Events, West Africa and African Concord, and published articles in newspapers around the world including the United States and Canada.

Dr. Quist-Adade arrived in Canada in 1992. For several years, he taught at the University of Windsor and at Wayne State University. He won many awards and accolades, including 1998 Ghanaian of the Year. Once he was named Most Popular Professor at the University of Windsor (1998 Maclean’s Magazine Annual Academic Edition) and more than once he appeared on published lists of the top ten professors at the university.

Besides teaching, Dr. Quist-Adade has taken a great interest in supporting Windsor’s Black community. He has for many years published Windsor’s Black community-oriented newsmagazine, Sankofa News, with the assistance of communication studies students from the University of Windsor. He has also acted as editor of the Multi-cultural News out of Toronto. Dr. Quist-Adade has to his credit more than 300 newspaper articles. His academic publications include the book Africa in the Shadows of the Kremlin and the Press: Africa’s Media Image During and After the Cold War (2001) and a chapter in the book Africa, the Kremlin and the Press by Lawrence Erlbaum Mahmah.

He is also the producer of The Ones They Left Behind: The Life and Plight of African Russians, a documentary film on the offspring of Black student fathers and Russian mothers and the experiences of these children in the (former) Soviet Union.

From September 1992 until August 2003, Dr. Quist-Adade produced and hosted CJAM’s Safari Pan-Afrikana, a weekly radio program featuring news, music, and commentaries on issues concerning continental Africa and the African Diaspora. Through the radio program and the Sankofa News, he has lent support to many Black community causes, as well as promoting unity and co-operation among all segments of Windsor’s Black community.

Currently, Dr. Charles Quist-Adade teaches at Kwantlen University College in British Columbia. His passion remains the quest for Global African unity and co-operation. Dr. Quist-Adade and his beautiful and affable wife, Geralda, have three children, Maayaa, Christopher (Kwaku) and Malika.

On February 14th, 2004, while he was a faculty member at Central Michigan University and still commuting to the Windsor area on a monthly basis for a variety of volunteer commitments, the Windsor and District Black Coalition awarded the 2004 Black Community Leadership Award to this dedicated leader and volunteer whose many contributions to the Black community of Windsor and region will never be forgotten.

We promote Human rights as an important value in the Western countries but we do not see that importance reflected in the media when it comes to International Human Rights Day. The scanty coverage in mainstream media will give you the impression that it is not that important. December 10 was International Human Rights Day. I think this is a day we all can and should celebrate regardless of race, creed, political beliefs and nationality. We all want our rights protected. Why is the media not playing up this event more than it does. Why are stories not researched etc. to show the benefits and beneficiaries of human rights.
In Winnipeg there is no complaint this year. We had a lot of media press around the Human Rights Commitment Award. This year the criteria for the Commitment award focused on the rights of the mentally ill. A FASD program that runs out of the David Livingston school was the winner. This program helps children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder to take their rightful place in society and to banish myths about children and people with this disorder. The children in this program were very happy to receive the award. In accepting the award, one of the children said they are just the same as every body, they just need a little more help than other children to do the right thing. He said they know right from wrong. The children were so sweet and touching. There was not a dry eye in the audience, I am sure.
The Youth winner of the Sybil Shack Youth Award was a grade 11 student from Balmoral Hall School, Krupa Kotecha. She was chosen for her tireless fight against racism and discrimination. She is the daughter of East Indian-Ugandan parents who were kicked out of Uganda during the crazy Idi Amin regime. Krupa has made a video about race bullying in schools and has done dramatic performances all having to do with raising awareness of racism. She was nominated by a teacher in the school.
The International Human Rights Day Luncheon has been sponsored for many years by the joint efforts of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Manitoba Association of Rights and Liberty. This year the event was held at the Radisson Hotel and was well attended.

On the 17th of November, the Ron Paley big band had a concert at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. The event was well attended, the concert was outstanding and it featured Winnipeg Jazz singer, Maiko Watson and a guy on the Sax I do not know his name but he was great. A great Francophone musicians to watch. Ron Paley is also freshening up his repertoire by incorporating some hip-hoppy kind of sounds. He was great and shows that he is a musician not stuck in his time but open to move with the time.
Was a great concert.

Open letter by Winnipegger Kojo Williams, community activist re: A sister who appears to be against Black-focused schools which is being discussed and ready to be tested in Toronto, Ontario where black youths seem to face more than the usual problems of racism, violence etc.

Hi Elma:

Greetings my Vincentian sister!!! I will be very brief with my response.

I think you and the other Blacks and anti-blacks are dead wrong on this issue. There are Black focused schools working well (for years) in the United States of America. There are Aboriginal, Jewish and other socused schools all over Canada. There is the Catholic School Board with Catholic schools all over Canada. There are schools dedicated for girls and schools dedicated for boys all over Canada. These special focused schools were established and maintained for good reasons. So why all this fuss now that - for some of the same reasons - Black focussed schools are proposed?

The fact is: the regular school system has failed Blacks all over Canada. Their curricula do not include the Black Canadian experience. They rape and rob our children of their self-esteem and self-worth. They graduate our kids at Grade nine and ten and leave them without education and by extension marketable skills, hence the reasons there are so many single Black mothers, unemployed Black males (particularly youths) and "Black youth crime".

Those Blacks who believe they "have arrived" and live in a society above the Black community need to understand the real issues that drive real Black leaders to try to try to establish Black focused schools - which are not exclusive to Blacks. They should work with the Black (and other) leaders who really care about Blacks and Canada, to correct Canada's racist systems and the attendant problems those who manage those systems so want to maintain.

As I see it, Black focused schools could be remedial places of learning which prepare Blacks - and other youths - to find an equal space in society. There is nothing racist or discriminatory about this. It simply makes sense for Blacks and the rest of the Canadian society.

My sister, I plead with you to re-examine this issue, as well as the state of the Black segment of our Canadian society. Your commentary may be music to the ears of those who benefit from the status quo, but equally so, it is pain in the heart of every Black mother and father whose youths have been failed by the present system.

Cheers!!!

News Release: Manitoba Human Rights Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2007
______________________________________________________________


Manitoba Human Rights Commission Releases 2006 Annual Report
Formal Complaints received is the highest since 1990

The total number of formal complaints the Manitoba Human Rights Commission received in 2006 is reaching record highs. According to Dianna Scarth, Executive Director of the Commission, the number of formal complaints received (297) is the highest since 1990 and rivals the numbers recorded in the first few years following the proclamation of the Human Rights Code (Manitoba) in December 1987. She adds that
in 2006, an additional 45 matters were resolved informally through the Commission’s
pre-complaint process.

The 2006 Annual Report also reveals that the greatest number of formal complaints filed continues to be on the basis of physical and mental disability. Ancestry complaints were the second highest. In recent years complaints based on sex, including pregnancy was second.

Statistics show that disability complaints were at 41.5%, while complaints based on ancestry were at 20%, and sex, including pregnancy, were at 18% of the total number of formal complaints filed.

The Commission is also facing more complicated systemic complaints. “One of the greatest challenges,” says Ms Scarth “is the level of resources available to deal with systemic complaints.”

Systemic complaints raise allegations of discriminatory treatment of large groups. Examples of systemic complaints range from the accreditation of foreign trained doctors to the treatment of women incarcerated in provincial institutions.

“Systemic complaints require extensive research and investigations, but resolutions have a great impact in addressing large scale patterns of discrimination,” says Ms Scarth.

Other highlights of the 2006 Annual Report include:


• Mediation commenced in regard to the Elizabeth Fry Society complaint against the Government of Manitoba. This was the first mediation about the treatment of female prisoners in a provincial system in Canada. (The mediation concluded successfully in 2007).

• A settlement was reached between the Rainbow Harmony Project and Camp Arnes, balancing freedom of religion and the right to protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

• The Commission and the University of Winnipeg’s Racialized Communities and Police Services Project held its first community consultation, which resulted in a joint news release agreed upon by all the groups in attendance, including the Winnipeg Police Service. The project began at the request of a group of inner city residents who alleged racial profiling by the City of Winnipeg Police.

• Legal proceedings included two successful adjudications (Amy and Jesse Pasternak v The Manitoba High School Athletic Association and Hank Richard v the Brandon Youth Hockey Association), and one successful Manitoba Court of Appeal hearing (Thorvaldson Care Homes Ltd. v the Manitoba Human Rights Commission).

• The Commission, with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, was granted intervener status at the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities v Via Rail. In support of the CCD, the Commission argued that human rights principles should be applied in the context of specialized human rights legislation. (The decision, in favour of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, was released in 2007.)

• The Commission developed guidelines for retailers, emphasizing the importance of respecting human rights when attempting to control the sale of intoxicating substances.


The 2006 Annual Report is available on the Commission’s website www.gov.mb.ca/hrc

For more information please contact:
Patricia Knipe
Communications Director
204-945-5112

SOUND THE TRUMPET!
UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA RHODES
SCHOLAR IS OFF TO OXFORD

"Nothing like this has ever happened to me"

The University of Manitoba continues its excellent record for its
students
winning Rhodes Scholarships with the awarding of a 2008 Rhodes
Scholarship to Akosua Matthews, who graduated from the University
of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts (honours) in 2006.

Ms Mathews, who also won the Gold Medal in Philosophy in 2006, is
currently a full-time policy analyst for the Province of Manitoba.
Born in Edmonton, she moved to Winnipeg at an early age, attending
Bairdmore, Dalhousie and Acadia schools, all in Fort Richmond.
Matthews is also a graduate of nearby Fort Richmond Collegiate. Her
mother is from Ghana, and her father, a three-time graduate of the
University of Manitoba, currently works for water stewardship with
the Province of Manitoba. She also has a brother currently enroled in
University 1 at the University of Manitoba.

"In school, Akosua was a leader in so many ways," says Kathleen
Crang, science teacher at Fort Richmond Collegiate. "She was active
in the Charity Club, Amnesty International and other groups."

"It´s been a whirlwind twenty-four hours," says Matthews. "The
stakes were very high, and I was blown away by the calibre of the
other candidates."

"What´s the right adjective to use?" her father muses. "We are
extremely pleased and excited for Akosua. She´s worked very hard
for this. After she got the call Saturday night, we phoned relatives
here in Canada to tell them the news and then woke up our relatives
in Ghana."

In addition to her outstanding academic credentials, Matthews is an
army reservist, where she is a corporal and plays bugle and trumpet in
the company band. "I was very busy performing at Remembrance Day
services this year," Matthews notes.

Matthews says she enjoyed her time in the philosophy department,
enhancing her ability to learn and share knowledge.

"My department was very small and hands-on," she says. "I got to
know my professors on a one-to-one basis. Many people think that
University of Manitoba is a really big school, but for me, my
experience was that once I got into a specific discipline, it became
quite small."

"People really got to know you," she adds.

Matthews is the 87th Rhodes Scholar to hail from the University of
Manitoba, which has produced more Rhodes Scholars than any other
university in Western Canada.

Matthews plans to eventually study law. Her Rhodes Scholarship is
tenable for studies at Oxford in England for two or three years
commencing in the fall of 2008, covering all tuition fees plus an
annual stipend.

For more information, contact Ms Akosua Matthews at: 204-880-
1514 (cell), or John Danakas, public affairs, at: 204-474-8551 or
204-228-9527 (cell).

A Winnippegger and member of the Ghanian community has won the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the most prestigious scholarships worldwide.
Akosua Matthews has been very active in the community. She participated in Folklorama and was a member of the Youth Parliament in 2004. She was the Director of Finance of the Board and acted as the Youth Parliament's 86th Deputy speaker with responsibilities of keeping accurate financial records; receiving all dues paid by members; and fundraising.

"I have been lucky to take part in a lot of youth groups based on interests such as politics. I was a page at the Manitoba Legislature. I took part in the Forum for Young Canadians in Ottawa, and this Holiday break I took part in Youth Parliament at the Manitoba Legislature. The great thing about these programs is the opportunity to meet other youth who are interested in politics and government"
Congratulations to you and family.

The 22 year old Matthews was born in Edmonton but was raised and schooled in Winnipeg. She graduated from Fort Richmond Collegiate. In 2006 she received a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and the gold medal in philosophy from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. She was lead intern for the Manitoba Legislative Assembly and is now a policy analyst with the Province of Manitoba. She is also a corporal and military musician in the reserve – Royal Winnipeg Rifles Regiment and an active member of the Youth Parliament of Manitoba. she intends to pursue graduate studies in philosophy in Oxford.

Updated November 21, 2007
Matthews thanks the Ghanaian community as being instrumental to her success
Please note that the Ghanaian Community has played a big role in my upbringing and personal development. My parents are very excited and we have shared the news with relatives in Ghana. A big thank you to all of my aunties, uncles and cousins who have been with me as I grew up.

Cheers,

Akosua Matthews