May 30, 2017 "Young caregivers lack right support in Canada": Today I found this article by Craig and Marc Kielburger in the Edmonton Journal. It's about teens as caregivers who take care of their siblings and parents. I remember watching an episode on Oprah.
This article is sad. However, this does inform people of what's going on Canada and how to help these young caregivers:
Kendra grew up too fast. At 12, she’d do her homework while caring for her twin with nonverbal autism as he watched the same Disney film over and over. She’d cook dinner while helping her older brother, living with a severe learning disability, make sense of his school work.
At 14, her father died from cancer, and she assumed even more responsibility as a caregiver while her mom took on a second job.
Kendra, whose name is changed in this column to protect her privacy, is one of the 1.9 million young caregivers across the country — teenagers or young adults who look after loved ones in the face of illness, addiction, disability or injury.
But there is no national conversation about these young people. Where are the headlines raising the issue or the policies to help address it?
In the United Kingdom, the issue is well known. There are over 700,000 young caregivers in the U.K., with national charities, social services to offer support and major studies commissioned by the government.
Between an aging population and a strained health-care system, Canada has an epidemic of young people forced to assume tremendous responsibility. But we have none of the support systems established in places like the U.K., Australia and South Africa.
And the result is a mental health tragedy.
Panic attacks. Depression. Exhaustion. Social isolation. Poor academic performance and absenteeism. Behavioural issues.
These are the symptoms that Vivian Stamatopoulus, a former young caregiver herself and now a faculty member at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, sees in her research.
“These kids undergo trauma,” she laments. They miss out on teams and clubs that run after school when they’re busy caring for loved ones. They’re too tired to learn or too busy to do homework, so are often labelled troublemakers. And they have trouble connecting socially, so are often bullied.
“It’s a mine field,” Stamatopoulus says, but the biggest problem is that they’re invisible.
In the U.K., one in 14 young caregivers receives some form of emotional, educational or financial assistance. In Canada, that number is one in 1,000.
And like so many issues in Canada, Stamatopoulus says the neglect of young caregivers plays out along racial and economic lines, hitting indigenous and northern families extra hard.
Just under half of all youth in Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon are young caregivers.
But the issue is not the care, it’s the lack of resources.
Young people can actually benefit from this responsibility, if they’re supported.
Studies show that when young caregivers have access to social services, they blossom, establishing heightened empathy and self sufficiency while building practical skills and nurturing emotional development.
Young carers need a quiet space away from the stress they face to do homework.
They need social activities to bond with others who share their experiences.
They need teachers who understand what they’re going through and can help support them academically.
They need, above all, to be shown the same compassion they’re being asked to show those they care for.
Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day.
Sept. 19, 2017 "Thinking inside the box": Today I found this article by Craig and Marc Kielburger in the Edmonton Journal:
Visiting Ghana a few years ago, some unusual kiosks caught the eye of Kevin Lee. Local vendors had cut windows and doors into abandoned shipping containers and turned them into storefronts.
"Clothiers, butchers, hairdressers — each day families went into the container they rented to ply their trade," recalls Lee, executive director of Scadding Court Community Centre in Toronto.
Lee returned home to the huge, deserted sidewalks surrounding his downtown community centre and had an epiphany. He called up Storstac, a company that up-cycles shipping containers, and had two retrofitted containers plonked down outside the centre on Dundas Street.
He invited neighbourhood entrepreneurs — those who couldn't afford the astronomical cost for a brick-and-mortar Toronto storefront — to set up shop in the containers for less than $25 a day.
Seven years and 15 containers later, Scadding Court's Market 707 is home to 23 businesses, many owned by new Canadians and refugees, in a thriving neighbourhood hub.
Market 707 is a creative new lease on life for these ubiquitous giants that would otherwise have gone to waste.
There are more than 17 million shipping containers around the world, bringing us avocados from Mexico and smartphones from China. Unfortunately, these prodigal crates rarely return home.
It's cheaper for manufacturers to build new containers for their goods than to send back old ones. Megatonnes of metal wind up rusting in dockyards. Like the vendors of Ghana, entrepreneurs are using shipping containers like huge Lego blocks — they can become anything.
Retired from the sea, these crates have found new life as libraries and computer labs in developing communities, and classrooms in refugee camps.
After Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston, Texas, one local farmer's crop withstood the blow. His storm-resistant hydroponic farm-in-a-box, made by Boston-based Freight Farms, provided fresh veggies for area residents.
Container homes have been a fad for years now, and not just for eccentric hipsters.
Community organizations like Vancouver's Atira Women's Resource Centre have found them a less-expensive option for social housing for marginalized and abused women.
Clinic in a Can, in Wichita, Kansas, turns old containers into mobile doctors' offices, medical labs, and even fully-equipped surgical units. The pods can be quickly deployed to natural disaster zones. Stick a bunch together and you have an instant hospital.
Now, aspiring container entrepreneurs beware: it's not as easy buying one and moving in.
Many containers have been treated with lead paint or harmful chemicals and must be cleaned.
You'll need doors, windows, insulation and special equipment for certain uses. Up-cycling a container for stores, like in Market 707, can cost $20,000 to $30,000, says Storstac founder Anthony Ruggiero.
But it's worth the investment.
Charging incredibly low rent, the Market 707 containers still paid for themselves in just three years, Lee tells us.
And they're creating economic opportunity in the community while generating revenue that funds Scadding Court's recreation and after school programs.
Mountains of old, rusted shipping containers are a monument to our insatiable desire for consumer goods and foods from abroad. Reincarnation means these metal boxes don't go to waste.
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