Speakers

Please join the Rotary Club of Edmonton West on Monday June 14 as we host Laetitia Deweer, the founder of CEPIA Costa Rica. CEPIA is a Costarican nationally accredited non-profit orgaization that since 2005 has promoted culture, educational and labor opportunities, mental and physical health, participation, and social cohesion of children and teenagers and their families from poor backgrounds in the communities of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. 

Recently, Edmonton West donated funds to CEPIA Costa Rica for a "Costa Rica Computer Replacement Project".  Laetitia Deweer will introduce our Club to CEPIA and will speak specifically to this project. 

The ZOOM coordinates for the meeting are provided below. ZOOM will open at 11:45 AM and our Edmonton West weekly meeting will start promptly at 12 Noon. Please click on the link below to join our meeting. 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83462985767?pwd=cTY1Y2liWklpWUZzODFOSVQraFQ5Zz09

For those who need it, the meeting ID is 834 6298 5767

Edmonton West Rotary Club weekly meetings typically finish by 1 PM

Please join the Rotary Club of Edmonton West on Monday June 21st, Canada's National Indigenous Peoples Day, as Lorelei Higgins speaks to us on "Reconciliation and Peace Building". 

As a Métis Canadian, Lorelei Higgins comes by her peacebuilding roots naturally. Lorelei’s Métis heritage can be traced from the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba where her great-grandfather came across to Canada from Kent, England, and met her great-grandmother – a Cree and Ojibwe community leader. In this beautiful coming together of different worlds, Lorelei says that peacebuilding is literally in her DNA. Lorelei has often found herself weaving and mediating between these different worldviews, finding the beauty at the points where the worlds come together – that of her Indigenous ancestry and her European heritage. It is not always easy to be Indigenous, especially as a Métis person. But, as Lorelei has deepened her own cultural exploration over the years, she has learned to look at this duality of identity as a gift. She no longer sees herself as between worlds. Rather, she embraces the beauty of both worlds, inspired by Terry St. Amant’s words: “We are not ‘half’ of anything, but doubled.”

Lorelei's work has taken her across the globe: she has been based in Asia, South Americam Europe, Africa and North America, working on various projects. When she was 17 Lorelei went on a Rotary youth exchange to South Africa in 1998-1999.

The ZOOM coordinates for the meeting are provided below. ZOOM will open at 11:45 AM and our Edmonton West weekly meeting will start promptly at 12 Noon. Please click on the link below to join our meeting. 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83005284964?pwd=enZ2QmM2aW1MUU1KaFpHdUZrdDAzdz09

For those who need it, the meeting ID is 830 0528 4964

Edmonton West Rotary Club weekly meetings typically finish by 1 PM

Bio extracted from https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/weaving-between-worlds-member-spotlight-lorelei-higgins/

Please join the Rotary Club of Edmonton West on Monday June 28th as we say goodbye to David Weir's 2020-2021 Rotary year and welcome Jason Bossert's 2021-2022 Rotary year. 

This has been a most unusual year, with all of our weekly, board and committee meetings, conferences and learning sessions, and other meetings being held virtually on ZOOM and similar tools. The start of the 2021-2022 year may have a similar look and feel but we are also seeing the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel and should return to enjoy face-to-face gatherings in Jason's year. 

At our June 21st weekly meeting David will summarize the highlights for his year before he passes the reins to incoming Club President Jason Bossert who will in turn set the stage for his upcoming year.

The ZOOM coordinates for the meeting are provided below. ZOOM will open at 11:45 AM and our Edmontion West weekly meeting will start promptly at 12 Noon. Please click on the link below to join our meeting. 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85161019561?pwd=NlZzZUJ0bEg2cTAxUnN3UzdoeXVIQT09

For those that need it, the meeting ID is 851 6101 9561

Edmonton West Weekly meetings typically finish by 1 PM. 

 

 

Carolyn Campbell is the President and CEO of NorQuest College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and is working on doctoral studies at the University of Oxford on the subject of board governance of major arts museums.  She is a former Deputy City Manager, Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism, and Associate Dean of Executive Education at the University of Alberta. She has served on over twenty-five boards and committees over the past two decades, with a focus on higher education, community and cultural boards, including Cabinet Chair of United Way of the Alberta Capital Region, Vice-Chair of Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and member of the Premier's Council on Culture.  Carolyn has taught strategic arts management and governance in the MBA program, and painting, drawing and visual design as a sessional instructor in Fine Arts at the U of A. She is a practicing figurative artist with a studio and membership at the Harcourt House Artist Run Centre.

Presentation Topic: Transforming Education For the Future State of Work

NorQuest’s new President and CEO, Carolyn Campbell, is passionate about education, leadership, and building strong communities. She has stepped into the role at unique and important time given the transformational change happening within the post-secondary sector. Carolyn will speak to some of NorQuest’s key strategies for ensuring that students are prepared for the demands of the future state of our changing economy.

Proposed special joint meeting with the Rotary Club of Edmonton (Downtown)

MLA Rachel Notley is a Canadian politician who served as the 17th premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019, and has been the leader of the Opposition since 2019. She sits as the member of the Legislative Assembly for Edmonton-Strathcona, and is the leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party. 

André Picard is a Canadian journalist and author specializing in health care issues. He works as a reporter and a columnist for the national newspaper The Globe and Mail. He runs the news organization's office in Montreal. He is the recipient of the 1993 Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism.

Mr. Picard recently published a book on the state of elder care in Canada:

Neglected No More: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada's Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic 

It took the coronavirus pandemic to open our eyes to the deplorable state of so many of the nation's long-term care homes: the inhumane conditions, overworked and underpaid staff, and lack of oversight. In this timely new book, esteemed health reporter André Picard reveals the full extent of the crisis in eldercare, and offers an urgently needed prescription to fix a broken system.

When COVID-19 spread through seniors' residences across Canada, the impact was horrific. Along with widespread illness and a devastating death toll, the situation exposed a decades-old crisis: the shocking systemic neglect towards our elders. Called in to provide emergency care in some of the hardest-hit facilities in Ontario and Quebec, the military issued damning reports of what they encountered. And yet, the failings that were exposed--unappetizing meals, infrequent baths, overmedication, physical abuse and inadequate personal care--have persisted for years in these institutions.

In Neglected No More, André Picard takes a hard look at how we came to embrace mass institutionalization, and lays out what can and must be done to improve the state of care for our elders, a highly vulnerable population with complex needs and little ability to advocate for themselves.

Picard shows that the entire eldercare system--fragmented, underfunded and unsupported--is long overdue for a fundamental rethink. We need to find ways to ensure seniors can age gracefully in the community for longer, with supportive home care and respite for family caregivers, and ensure that long-term care homes are not warehouses of isolation and neglect. Our elders deserve nothing less.