Making a difference from New Orleans to Uganda
Jul 01, 2006
CATRIONA LE MAY
DOAN
DOES SHE EVEN HAVE A SLOWER GEAR?
Catriona Le May Doan retired from speed skating three years ago, but
the two-time Olympic gold medallist exclaims, "I have more on my
plate than ever!" Le May Doan, 35, serves as a director of the
Canadian Sport Centre and the Canadian Olympic Development Association,
having just finished a three-year stint with the Vancouver Organizing
Committee for the 2010 Winter Games. She's an ambassador for Right to
Play, which promotes youth sports in developing countries, and is similarly
affiliated with KidSport. Add to that commitments to the Mustard Seed
and Youth in Motion Education foundations, Samaritan's Purse, World
Vision and the spina bifida association and this new mom is booked.
It's no wonder she was honoured with the Order of Canada last year.
"With skating, once the training was done, the priority was resting,"
she says. "Now rest is further down the line."
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KELLY DAMPHOUSSE
TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT TERRORISTS
Like most Canadians who work in the United States, Kelly Damphousse
hears it all the time: Your country is a haven for terrorists who sneak
across the border. Didn't the 9/11 hijackers come from Canada? "It's
part of any Canadian's job who lives in the States to dispel those myths
in a friendly way -- which is the Canadian way," says Damphousse,
43. Having reliable stats certainly helps. Since 1994, the native of
Lac La Biche, Alta., who teaches sociology at the University of Oklahoma,
has worked closely with another professor to compile the American Terrorism
Study, an exhaustive database of names, dates and indictments that spans
two decades worth of FBI terror investigations. It has proven to be
an invaluable tool, studied by law enforcement agencies in the hope
that past patterns may help them predict the timing of a future attack.
As for a Canadian pattern, there isn't one. "Maybe one person,"
Damphousse says, "has some kind of connection to Canada."
ORIM MEIKLE
WITNESS THE POWER OF PRAYER PATROL
About two years ago, Orim Meikle, the founding pastor of Toronto's Rhema
Christian Ministries, buried a congregation member's son who had been
killed in a shooting. That was the day, he says, that the city's gun
violence came to his church's door and he decided to fight back. Meikle,
38, now hosts a local radio show focused on youth violence. He's soft-spoken
but charismatic, and never minces words when it comes to the black community's
problems. He also leads prayer patrols, where hundreds of people "walk
right into areas where people have been shot." As well as running
youth education and employment programs, his church -- which has grown
from 20 people in 1999 to more than 2,000 under his leadership -- focuses
on "building healthy and strong family structures," Meikle
says. "If it's a war on violence, we should be on the front lines."
TIM ARMSTRONG
AIN'T NO RIVER WIDE ENOUGH
Just hours after hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast last year,
Tim Armstrong was already on the phone with emergency response teams
in the area, inquiring if there was anything the Vancouver Urban Search
and Rescue Team could do. A day later, the 46-member team -- which has
since become a model for other Canadian cities to copy -- was the first
on the ground in St. Bernard Parish, plucking survivors from their flooded
homes. During their week in Louisiana, the team, made up largely of
policemen, firemen and paramedics(all specially trained volunteers),
saved 119 people. "When I look back it's exhausting thinking about
it," says Armstrong, 46, a team leader. "We were running for
a week on pure adrenalin." His proudest moment: when the local
fire chief told the team to raise the Canadian flag up one of the ladder
trucks.
JOHN MAJOR
PM'S RETIREMENT GIFT TO JUDGE: AIR INDIA
John Major got a call from Stephen Harper earlier this year asking him
if he was up for a challenge. The former Supreme Court justice, living
in Calgary and only a month into his retirement, accepted the Prime
Minister's offer to head up the long-awaited inquiry into the Air India
disaster. As commissioner of the inquiry, which started in June, Major,
75, has the giant task of bringing some closure to the troubled 20-year
investigation into what was the worst act of terrorism in aviation history
before 9/11(329 people died when a bomb exploded on Air India Flight
182 in 1985). "I think the most important question for the victims'
families now," he says, "and it's one that at best can only
be partially answered, is 'Could the same thing happen again?'"
In all likelihood, the inquiry will be long(at least a year), but Major
says he always knew he'd be working post-retirement. "I can't paint
so I don't have any real competing hobbies," he quips. "This
seemed like a worthwhile project."
JENN BRENNER
IT TAKES A WELL-TRAINED VILLAGE
In southwestern Uganda, where one in five children die before they reach
their fifth birthday, Jenn Brenner is making a difference. The 35-year-old
pediatrician, who works at the Alberta Children's Hospital and as an
assistant professor at the University of Calgary, is setting up community
health programs for children in the African country. Brenner's program
trains local volunteers -- mostly mothers -- in poverty-stricken villages
to recognize ailing children and ensure they receive treatment at a
health care centre. "When these women are empowered," says
Brenner, "they can instigate quite a bit of change." Already,
children are receiving medical care faster and more often, and the area
has a higher immunization rate. And Brenner recently received a CIDA
grant worth $1.4 million over six years. "We hope to triple the
area we reach in the next two years."
RON JAMIESON
THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A PROUD HOMEOWNER
Before stepping down as a Bank of Montreal senior vice-president last
fall, Ron Jamieson, a Mohawk from the Six Nations reserve in southern
Ontario, pioneered a program that injected more than $50 million in
home mortgage-style financing into 22 of Canada's nearly 600 reserves.
Jamieson's program gets around the Indian Act prohibition that prevents
outright home ownership on reserves. Reserve residents who borrow from
the bank to build or upgrade houses hold a certificate that is the next
best thing -- they can sell the certificate like a title, or will it
to children. The bank accepts that any borrowers who can't make payments
will be kicked out and the home will be made available to a resident
who can keep them up. It works. "We see a terrific upswing in the
quality and care of homes," says Jamieson, who touted the model
at Vancouver's World Urban Forum last week. "It's almost miraculous."
BRAD AND BARRY COLLINS
SMALL-TOWN BROTHERS, BIG-TIME GAMERS
Dumb persistence is what Brad Collins credits for his and younger brother
Barry's imminent debut as international tutors of video game making.
Growing up in Powell River, a British Columbia community of 20,000,
the brothers taught themselves video game development. They soon became
go-to guys for gaming geeks in online communities -- which got them
thinking about starting a forum for people who, like themselves, had
limited support. "We had to learn the hard way, and it's not nice
to learn the hard way," says Brad, 23. They received $150,000 in
seed money earlier this year from Microsoft, partnered with organizations
that offer free computer access in remote regions of Canada and Latin
America, and started Project Locus -- which will launch a new community
this summer providing online game-building instruction and tutorial.
They're hoping to build computer literacy and employability. "It
will engage people who want to be creative," says Brad, 23. "We
don't imagine that everyone is going to become a game developer, but
they'll learn how to use the computer. It's like someone who likes comic
books and along the way learns to read and write."