Last Friday's meeting, March 15th, began with announcements from the club. Marty Fairbairn talked about the first Lobster Fest meeting that took place on Monday the 11th. He expressed how grateful he was to the new members that joined the committee and how he looks forward to working with everyone.
President Mohan made an announcement about her Tesla, which just arrived.
Noma remined everyone about Guess who's Coming to Dinner. The event will take place on May 4th from 6:00 PM - 11:59 PM. If you're interested in participating, Noma has sent an email with a link to signup.
After lunch, Anne Mackay introduced our speaker Kymani Montgomery who spoke to our club, via zoom, from Ottawa.
Kymani Montgomery (any pronouns)
is the acting executive director for the 10 Oaks Project and is a Black, queer, immigrant (from the United States) who has worked with children and youth for over 10 years. With a background in political science and education, Kymani strives to help children and youth have difficult conversations about racism, gender, sexuality, and class.
He wants to bring recreation and camping to communities that have been historically shut out. Kymani has worked in both overnight and day camps in Canada, the USA, and Switzerland.
Kymani joined the 10 Oaks Project in 2022.
10 Oaks is a charitable organization working to help children, youth and families from 2SLGBTQ+ (two spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer) communities thrive.
Since 2004, it has created safer spaces for children and youth of 2SLGBTQ+ communities to connect, play, and have their voices be heard.
10 Oaks is primarily a camp, but they also offer workshops and work closely with community partners to create safe spaces outside of camp. Some of the workshops they offer are for parents with transitioning kids.
The program provides parents with information about gender identity and trans issues, strategies for improving communication and connection with trans/gender questioning young people, and general support in parenting a trans/gender-questioning youth.
Kymani explained that 10 oaks has five core values:
1. Empowerment through play
2. Learning by doing
3. Social justice
4. Collaboration and innovation
5. People
Kymani also discussed how organizations like the 10 Oaks Project are so important right now due to the increasing hate directed towards members of the LGBTQ2+ community. He emphasized how it is important for all children to have a safe place to be themselves.
Kymani concluded his presentation with a Q&A that led to many valuable questions and answers. President Nanita Mohan thanked Kymani for his presentation.
Notes taken by Aidan Harris.
Update: Spring Grant Cycle Now Open
Gisella Gazzola wanted everyone to know that the Spring grant cycle is now open. Organizations can find the online application form on our website under the "Grants" tab. Organizations have until April 3rd to submit an application.
From May 2-5, 2024 the ArtsEverywhere Festival will take place in Guelph!
As Marva explained in her announcement to the club last Friday, the ArtsEverywhere Festival is the place where conversations, ideas, and artistic experiments come alive in the community of Guelph. From May 2nd to May 5th join members of our community for lectures, conversations, music, artistic performances, circle gatherings, literary readings, exhibitions, and much more. The full festival program will be announced soon, so please subscribe to the ArtsEverwhere email list to receive upadtes.
2023 marked the 20th edition of The Guelph Lecture—On Being, it was an exciting evening that confronted the urgencies of our time through the lens of art and ideas. By bringing together a diverse, informative, creative, and sometimes unlikely combination of people, the festival weekend offers programming that connects to the ongoing work and needs of many organizations and individuals who wish to make the world a better place.
If you are interested in attending, please follow this link for more info: https://festival.artseverywhere.ca/
In this month's Rotary Magazine highlight, we look at Congo's use of geospatial tracking to record and map the distribution of polio vaccines in local communities. The story is titled, "Polio Mapping Goes High Tech: Geotracking Improves Outbreak Response Targeting, Ensuring Fewer Children are Left Behind." The article is written by Tolu Olasoji and can be found, in its original form, on page 12 of your March magazine.
Disease mapping has been done since the mid-19th century. However, with new technologies, this mapping can now occur more efficiently and accurately.
Geospatial analytics/tracking is a tool that is used in a variety of different fields: weather forecasting, defense, sales, agriculture, to name a few. The World Health Organization (WHO) is using this technology to prevent and respond to public health threats around the world. One of these projects is the mapping of polio vaccine distribution in the Republic of Congo.
Starting last year, the Republic of Congo has been mapping out vaccine distribution using smart phones that are connected to a central digital map (shown in the image above). The location of vaccinators are tracked, via their smartphones, and this information is sent to the central database. When a house or area has been visited by a vaccinator and successfully vaccinated it turns green on the map. Areas that have not been vaccinated remain red.
What is great about this technology is that areas and communities that are often overlooked will get properly immunized. Moreover, the efficiency of this technology ensures that vaccines are distributed quickly and systematically in order to prevent outbreaks.
Sandra Line, a WHO trained vaccinator, says, "all you have to do is charge your phone and make sure you turn on the tracker when you are out on the streets. I just put it in my pocket and go from house to house." The mobile app is similar to a fitness tracker, it counts steps, plots coordinates, and provides essential details about dates and times. Vaccinators can also enter in information about settlements, households, and reasons why individuals refused a vaccination.
This software has been so successful in The Republic of Congo that it will be implemented in other countries in Africa and used for purposes beyond polio. It is wonderful to see the implementation of such an effective technology!
.png)
