Onley to speak at U of T Scarborough event on championing disability

BY GEORGE KAGAME

The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Honourable David Onley is set to participate in the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus on the topic Championing Disability on 11 March at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus.

The fee for all event is open is organized by the Scarborough based campus and will start mid morning till late in the day. Tina Doyle, Director AccessAbility services at U of T Scarborough said the Onley will expand on his renown ideas and increase awareness of issues related to disabilities and accessibility. “We want to encourage dialogue on these issues within our campus community.”
Doyle said that Onley’s speech at the university will generate discussion among students, staff and faculty and that it will encourage “all of us to work together to reduce the barriers to participation that are faced by persons with disabilities in our community and society as a whole,”

Onley, a veteran broadcast journalist in Canada has been at the forefront of championing causes that support the equal treatment of people with disabilities since the 1980s. He maintains that accessibility is a human right and accessibility is right.

During his installation as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Onley said: My dream is of a province where disability rights are advanced not only for those with clasically-defined physical disabilities, but also for so called ‘invisible’ disabilities. We must not presume that disability is only represented by a white wheelchair symbol on a blue sign.”

Onley is a published writer for his book, Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space, a bestselling novel about space travel, published in 1981 and was also appointed Chair of the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council to the Minister of Community and Social Services in 2005. He was most recently inducted into the Scarborough Walk of Fame in 2006.

Former Star publisher applauds Ryerson’s journalism school

School is the best in the country: Honderich

by George Kagame

John Honderich the former publisher of The Toronto Star has applauded Ryerson University’s School of Journalism for its good work in training young professionals that contribute to shaping the policies and personalities of the country.

Honderich was speaking on Wednesday March 4th at a fund raising ceremony for the Ryerson Review of Journalism bi-yearly students magazine at Pantages Hotel in down town Toronto. Honderich said Ryerson has the best journalism school in the country and students that graduate from the institution would not find it difficult to get employment even in hard economic times as it is today. He commended the dean of the school of journalism at Ryerson for starting a dialogue where students can exchanges ideas on the important issues in the country.

“I believe in magazine journalism and Ryerson gives you students the best start. The school has done a tremendous job by supporting this dialogue where young writers can talk about issues and people that shape policies in the country. It is also very important that the best journalism school in the country also organizes the discussion about the profession.”

He added that the media organization he works for-the Torstar group (which also publishes The Toronto Star) would regard graduates from Ryerson for employment when it has got opportunities because of the high standards of the school, “even in tough economic times as these, Ryerson is still the university of choice for Torstar Corporation when hiring, he said.

Honderich who has been a donor to the journalism school initiatives for a long while added that he would continue his assistance in the future, however, the total amount of funds raised at the function which was held in Martini Bar was not released immediately.

The editor of the magazine Canice Leung said production of this year’s spring edition was a challenging task but one her team was ready to succeed at: “we still need more funding to ensure a good quality product in the magazine. It is a challenging job and we need all the guidance and assistance.” She said the 2009 spring issue will be out soon.

The glossy magazine celebrated its 25th anniversary last year with its current edition covered; “25 years of watching the watch dogs” and it came out last year’s summer. The magazine is published by the Chair of Ryerson University’s School of Journalism Paul Knox and caters primarily for developing the writing and editing skills of journalism students at the university but also gives insights of or about established veteran journalists in Canadian and international media organization. The 25th anniversary gives analysis of intimidation at Pakistan papers.

One journalist’s journey from East Africa to Canada

and its professional trappings

BY GEORGE KAGAME




Adam Giambiore, the influential and highly newsworthy chairman of the Toronto Transit Commission is on facebook, with over 2500 friends that i can fairly assume he has never met. It is also said that David Miller the mayor of Toronto is subscribed on twitter another of a myriad networking forums on the internet.

So as I sent my request to Gambiore to be his friend on facebook with a personal note introducing myself as a community journalist, i never expected him to respond but his response was swift. And since then through his status updates, I get to know what the senior official is upto and can easily contact him for a comment should I have a story. My interest with the two big men in the politics of Toronto comes from the fact that as a journalist in Africa, its only the views of the big man that normally makes the story.

While to a large extent the big man in Canada is in most times willing to tell his story to a journalist as fast as it happens. It is one of ‘professional shocks’ that in the short time I have practiced journalism here, I have been able to get the powerful councillors, bigger politicians, theatre directors and even-after accreditation to cover the national assembly proceedings at one time I would talk to some of Canada’s most influential policy makers without necessarily going through the African Big Man culture of scheduling an appointment for a happening story a week sometimes a month earlier.

The internet, its fast speed and general availability in Canada is one of the most enduring revelations that i have witnessed as a visiting journalist. However, it is not about the internet or the politicians and social networking groups that I intend to write about-although that is worth an effort-but the differences I have come to experience as a practicing journalist in East and Central Africa and here Canada too-expected and ernomous as there are and the opportunities and challenges in the two parallel societies.

The media is in most cases responsible for the way different societies hold perceptions towards each other, it is with this in mind possibly that African intellectuals and politicians like to moan about the unfairness of the western media in covering issues, events, and personalities about and from the continent. The politicians and intellectuals say that the west and its media interest themselves in telling mainly the gruesome and brutal side of Africa and its stories, that the west lumps the continent as one and the same.

The same Africans never do anything to help the growth of African media to tell the real stories of Africa, or in most cases contribute to thwarting the growth of the industry. For us practicing journalists on the continent writing or reporting for African media houses, many times to get stories-bad or good-is easy but to get people wanting to get on record is extremely difficult, and the person is in most cases not separated from his profession, it goes for example in my own country that if a journalist wrote what a politician disagreed with, the journalist is made to pay the worst of prices, his job for example, arrest and in some cases street gung-go beatings.

Because in Africa there’s no culture of record keeping, the people involved in the business of records of what happens in the continent are historically unpopular with the powers that be, normally the African best writers, journalists and historians who try to record the events and issues of Africa are chased away to foreign lands.

It could be unreasonable arrogance, big man culture, ignorance, fear for upsetting their appointing authorities, (where i come from there is a very strict patriarch system where most power is resident in the brain of only one person-the president) and incompetence all a mixture of both but it is true to state that politicians in my country are weary of journalists and don’t take them serious at all.

Even a politician campaigning for votes in Africa will only meet a journalist at his biding in the process influencing local news at his convinience, and yet when a western journalist makes contact the same politician an appointment will be very swift.
African politicians are obsessed with speaking to western journalists, even when they always dismiss the stories these journalists post. The ones that are savvy enough to give press conferences do it in fact to mock journalism.

To start with, the media in my country operates in a very unfriendly environment compared to other African countries. First, because of the top down approach to journalism, the media in Rwanda like the security organizations in the country at the time participated in organizing the 1994 genocide which at its apex claimed close to one million innocent civillians.
As a result, today journalists are viewed with a lot of skepticism by society at large and they face the brunt of genocide ideology still prevailing in the country today.

A journalist will be treated by his sources depending on which ethnic side he is suspected to belong to. It goes that a Tutsi or Hutu journalist will be told different versions of the same story and also depending on which media house they report for. For all the advances registered in the country so far since the end of that conflict 15 year ago, the media remains the most maligned sector in the country and there’s still no will or concrete program by the government to develop it.

The government for its part does not take the profession serious enough while the public thinks that journalists are only singing the praise of the government. So it is not surprising therefore that one excited journalist once wrote that to be gay-it is still criminal in Rwanda is equivalent to the crime of genocide and no one ever opened a debate on the subject.

From the above, the media in Rwanda operates at an entirely different level with that in Canada(here the sources of news are very cooperative) but there are also some similarities especially when it comes to asking to see my story but only that the ones in Canada want a PDF file well as in Rwanda they will order me to send the story before it is published.

That said, before I came to Canada I never had pride in the work I did as a journalist. First, the people who the read the newspaper I wrote for are very few relative to the target market, and even the ones that read it never had any feedback so there was no way of seeing the good, bad and ugly of my work. But it is entirely different here, there’s a serious reading culture that if you are a journalist you most definitely have to research about your story before writing it because the audience is quite informed and quite active.

In the subway you will observe that most passengers are reading something from newspapers to novels, magazines, bibles, journals. Even children read here. As a journalist I’m always proud seeing people emmersed in a newspaper reading or filling a crossword puzzle.

Rwandans and Tamils in joint rally

Call on influential countries to end the genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka

By GEORGE KAGAME
March 03, 2009 5:15 PM
Print E-mail

Hundreds of members from Toronto's Rwandan community joined their Tamil colleagues in a public rally at Yonge-Dundas Square Friday, Feb. 27 .

Holding placards with messages that read, "Save the Tamils, stop the genocide," many Rwandans and Sri Lankans of varying ages called upon the United Nations to take a more active role in ending the violence in the northeastern part of Sri Lanka which, according to many Tamils interviewed at the rally, is orchestrated by the ruling government against Tamils - displacing 300,000 in the process and leading to the death of about 1,000 in the past two months.

Ahilan Ratwan, a senior official in the Toronto Tamil community, said there is no doubt the killings in Sri Lanka are a genocidal campaign organized against his community.

"We are here in the hope that the Canadian government can notice the plight of our people and help the Tamils by using its influence both in the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

He added the protests were meant to also get the attention and notice of Canadian voters who can challenge Canadian politicians to act in ending the violence in his country.

Sunny Kumarasamy a Canadian Tamil high school student in Toronto was more skeptical however; she said the current Canadian government is a very conservative one and therefore would not be concerned by the problems in other places.

"By protesting from here we are showing that the problems in Sri Lanka are also of concern for people living here in Canada. I hope that the government reacts and works with powerful countries to end the killings taking place in Sri Lanka."

Patrick Mugabo, a Rwandan protestor, said he was at the rally to lend moral support to the Tamils because it was a responsibility of all human beings to stand for peace and human rights.

"In my own country before and during 1994, we had people being killed in the thousands daily for three months because other people were not concerned about the issue. It is my responsibility to ensure such dangers in other communities are not repeated and the Tamil situation is slowly escalating to alarming situations as international agencies try to define what is taking place there."

In stating its support to Toronto's Tamil community, the Rwandese Canadian Association (RCA) noted in a communique to the press, signed by the association's director John Rukumbura, that said: "The Rwandan community strongly condemns the killing of innocent civilians in any part of this globe, while the international community shows the same old indifference, whether it is in Darfur or Sri Lanka. We cannot stand idly by and witness the tragedy that is occurring against innocent Tamils in Sri Lanka."

The Rwandans join the Tamils at a time when the University of Toronto is set to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide which claimed almost one million people in only 100 days in 1994.

The events at the university include a conference called "Remembering Rwanda 15: Lessons learned/ Not Learned" March 20-22.

The conference will feature some of the world's most renowned genocide scholars and genocide activists. Hundreds of scholars, students, teachers, members of the Rwandan community, and other members of the general public are expected to attend.

Fate and history connected Canada to Rwanda during the 1994 genocide as the only United Nations' mission in Rwanda at the time was under the command of Canadian army general Romeo Dallaire who tried to stop the genocide but was prevented from doing so by the bureaucracy of the UN.

To register for this conference, visit: www.rememberingrwanda15.webs.com

Faculty: $45.00; General Public: $30.00; Rwandan Community: $25.00; Students: $25.00.

Scarborough already in gear for 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver

Chances open for 4500 performers at opening and closing ceremonies
by George Kagame

With exactly 346 days from today to the start of the 2010 Winter Games, Bell Telecommunications has given the Scarborough community the opportunity to be part of the most important sports event in Canada in recent years.

By appointing Pat Canwith as Venue Telecommunications Manager at the Games, Bell stated that the Rouge Hill resident for 17 years is part of a ‘dream team’ of technical directors who will support the critical communications services required to deliver the Winter Games to other parts of Canada and the rest of the world.

Canwith who has been working with Bell for 18 years joined the 2010 Operations team in 2008 and for the past two months, she has been at the Whistler Centre in Vancouver leading the technical team in support of the World Cup for Bobsleigh and Skeleton and Luge.
Canwith is part of Bell’s 20 member strong team of venue communication managers that are already engaged in supporting a range of 17 different World Cup sports events currently taking place at Olympic venues from January to March 2009.

In a related development, residents of Scarborough and other parts of Toronto now have more opportunities to participate in the 2010 Winter Games as performers, dancers and athletes of all types. This was announced on Tuesday 3rd March after the organizing committee of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games-VANOC launched the search for thousands of volunteers to participate in these iconic and magical mega-productions that bookend the Games.

According to the VANOC website, the application process for ceremonies volunteers can be downloaded and filled online at www.vancouver2010.com/ceremonies. Candidates are asked to complete an application online that lists their skills and abilities. VANOC is searching for 4,500 dancers, athletes and performers across all disciplines. All performers must be aged 17 or older by May 1, 2009 to apply. The Games begin on 12th February 2010.

What should we do to managers of media in Rwanda......

It is disconcerting hearing senior Rwandan government officials speak about the media in the country, on one hand they say, especially the RPF is committed to helping the sector grow, and on the other, mid level officials never want to be recorded for fear of reprisals from 'above"-hell, then why do you sign performance contracts anyway?

Hey, we need our jobs bwana. Or you can interview Rucagu, he can give you a good opinion. That said, I might suggest that the media would be improved if the bosses of The New Times and ORINFOR if the vastly overpaid top men in those two organizations were sacked, although the response from many junior employees at the two companies would be "Here he goes again". In reference to Kagame and his cohorts, or a certain Ndahiro-i wonder how this man thinks, like him, all officials in the government-and by extension the private sector as well are more concerned with brand product Kagame-Paul that is, instead of concrete plans to develop the media.

I'll tell you what we should do to the people that run the media in Rwanda, we should cover them in marmalade and lock them in a greenhouse full of wasps, (yes, Amavubi) then scour the stings with a Brillo pad. Then prick them with hedgehog spikes, smear them with fish paste and dip them in Sydney Harbour, then glue them to a pig and send them into an al-Qa'ida training camp with a letter announcing they're a work of art, never mind sack them."

Random Ramblings

Visit to the Ottawa based parliament-press gallery and what i like to call press corps, very organized media practitioners, keeps ethics, issues and tips not only documented by the managers of the press corps but also easy to circulate.
The Canadian society is less on talk, on transit buses everyone has earphones, reading a book. The country is credited for having initiated the idea of peace missions and as a people Canadians are famous for their politeness however, in my experience the country is also obsessed with space.
There are no walled fences or barricades as i have seen in Africa, homes are simply built even for the rich folks however as individuals Canadians are very particular people, friendships are made in particular circles, immigrant communities pride in their being closed to out against other cultures while on individual basis people like to keep their spaces


great for trend voyeurism – from What's Big Right Now, to the Next Big Thing, to Something Else Big Lurking Just Around The Corner. Usually these "bigs" fall into esoterically different camps: