rabble radio

There are thousands of people in Canada involved in international humanitarian work. According to CARE Canada in a 2011 study, there were 14,000 full-time and 32,000 part-time workers working in international development in our country. And there are also thousands of volunteers who go oversees to provide health-care relief, build schools, help out in community radio stations, and assist in environmental initiatives, among other things. That's a lot of people. Most of them are working from home right now, and many have likely lost their jobs. The exact numbers aren't known yet. And we don't know how many volunteer placements have stopped. One thing is pretty sure -- they're wondering and worrying about the people they help. It's especially difficult because they can't physically go there to see the situation first hand, and in many cases communications infrastructure is either unreliable or unavailable. Today we're talking to two people who work in international development: David Barth is the executive director of World Accord in Waterloo, Ontario. Barth was with a group of volunteers in Honduras when airports started to close and countries were shutting their borders to stop the spread of COVID-19. They are back home now with a lot of stories to tell about what they went through. He also talks about World Accord's partners and his hopes and fears as the pandemic spreads. Simon Chambers is the director of communications for ACT Alliance. The ACT Alliance is a coalition of Protestant and Orthodox churches and church-related organizations engaged in humanitarian, development and advocacy work. The alliance has 135 members working in over 120 countries. Up until a few months ago, he was spending a lot of time on planes going to international meetings. Not now. He's in Toronto, still working but from home. Chambers talks about how the pandemic is shifting priorities for NGOs, and is hopefully not sidelining climate change efforts. Image: Victoria Fenner

Gaza is only 365 square kilometres and home to almost two million Palestinians. It's been under a comprehensive Israeli land and sea blockade for 13 years. Israeli military assaults in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 have laid waste to much of its infrastructure. Poor sanitation, lack of clean water, poverty, unemployment and an acute shortage of hospital beds and equipment are a perfect storm for disease transmission. The people of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories -- under permanent military rule and denied the most basic civil and political rights -- are particularly ill-equipped to protect themselves. The first two cases in Gaza were diagnosed on March 21. That was 12 days ago. As of April 2, there are 12 reported cases of COVID-19 in Gaza, and 155 in Palestine as a whole. David Kattenburg is the publisher of The Green Planet Monitor, a Canadian online news magazine based in Winnipeg. The situation in Palestine is one of his main ongoing areas of coverage. He spoke with Mariam Abu Alatta about the current situation early last week just after the announcement of the first two cases. Abu Alatta is project and fundraising officer of the Aisha Association for Woman and Child Protection. Image: Gigi Ibrahim/Flickr

Lois Ross, our agriculture columnist at rabble.ca has been a frequent visitor to Cuba. This year's trip was a little different and somewhat unnerving as she watched the COVID-19 pandemic cross the ocean and start to affect North America. She got home over a month ago, and the situation she was seeing was worrying, though not like it is today. She's home, she's safe ... with some thoughts about the precarious situation we find ourselves in. While Havana seems like a different world, Lois says there are lessons to be learned from Cuba which we should heed here in Canada. Her most recent column focuses on how the tiny country became self-sufficient in agriculture. rabble radio host and producer Victoria Fenner gave her a call to expand on some of her ideas. They talked about Cuba, and also how Canada is vulnerable when it comes to self-sufficiency in food production because, well, we're not self-sufficient. The gaps in grocery store shelves that we're seeing now because of the interruption of the food supply chain due to COVID-19 is a warning which we need to pay attention to. Rounding out the show on our theme of sustainability and urban agriculture is a short documentary done in 2006 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, by Victoria Fenner for Earth Chronicle Productions in Manitoba (now called The Green Planet Monitor). Colombo is a very dense city, full of concrete with a shortage of land. Nonetheless, urban farming was being encouraged and a very young group of people were getting lessons in farming from a very young age. They'd be all grown up by now, but there are still some things to learn from them. Read Lois Ross' column "Cuba Is Teaching The World Lessons in Sustainability," published on March 18. Image: Indrid__Cold/Flickr

Those of us who are gig workers and small business owners were relieved to hear the announcement yesterday that there will be some support for people like us in this time of COVID-19. But, we're not out of the woods yet. We don't know how it's all going to work. And if it works like employment insurance does, 55 per cent of already marginal incomes isn't much money. On today's rabble radio, Victoria Fenner talks to three vulnerable workers. They're sharing their questions, their fears and some of the unique dynamics of their occupation in the place where they live. 1.) Alyssa Wright is a cellist, singer/songwriter, author, advocate, activist and occasionally, an actor living in Barrie, Ontario. She talks about the idiosyncracies of life as a musician, and what she hopes the government realizes about how artists work as it puts together the financial package to help them out. 2.) Hannah McIlveen is an artist, animal rights advocate and owner-operator of Open Arms Dog Daycare and Boarding in River Ryan, Nova Scotia. She lives in Cape Breton with her husband, Kevin Kiosis, a paramedic, and a veritable zoo of pets! 3.) Karen Burson has worked in a variety of food-related occupations ... everything from owning an artisan small batch ice cream shop, to municipal food policy work and to her current role as cook and food security coordinator at St. Matthew's House in North Hamilton. And music by Alyssa Wright. This podcast topic was partly inspired by an article written by Karl Nerenberg on Tuesday this week called "Government Must extend EI to Low-Income and Gig Workers. It's an excellent article and it was good news to hear news of financial assistance yesterday from Ottawa. Though the actions of the government will help, it's only a partial solution. You'll hear some more reasons why on today's show. Image: Alyssa Wright by Scott Cooper. Used with permission. Music: Alyssa Wright. My Cup. Used with permission.

People who haven't been to university in a very long time might think of a student union as a club on campus. The reality is that most student unions in Canadian universities are sizeable employers. The student unions at larger universities employ a few hundred people, and not just students. Full-time people rely on their jobs with the students union to pay their mortgates and feed their families. They also administer dental and health plans, have seats on the governing bodies of the university and work to protect students' rights on campus. If that conforms to the definition of a "club," it's a really big one. Student unions are independent corporations, with complex agreements in place with the university administration to operate on campus and receive student fees. Most of the time, the relationship is straightforward. But not always. Ryerson University and the Ryerson Students' Union have had a fractured relationship for a couple of years, stemming from allegations of mismanagement of funds by the RSU a couple of years ago. The dispute went to court last week because the university challenged the status of the student union on campus and refused to hand over funds for the union to operate. This has been going on for a couple of years now, and the legal deliberations aren't over yet. But there was a favourable decision last week for the Ryerson Students' Union's case. Nicole Brayiannis is president of the Continuing Education Students' Association at Ryerson, also known as CESAR. CESAR had intervenor status in the case, and Nicole was in the courtroom. She talked to Victoria Fenner. Image: Hoice/Wikipedia

Podcasters Itisha Giri and Bhrikuti Rai are fed up with the male-dominated discourse in Nepali media and are determined to change it. The hosts of Boju Bajai are using their platform to speak to women, for women and about women in a space where many voices are left behind. Giri, a writer, and Rai, a journalist, met in 2016 at an audition for The Vagina Monologues in Kathmandu. They bonded over how they think the country's media has failed women, time and again. Maxine Betteridge-Moes is a freelance journalist and podcast producer from Guelph, Ontario, who is now in Nepal. She's a big fan of the podcast. She is in Nepal working with an NGO called the Blue Diamond Society, established in 2001 to advocate for the rights of Nepal's marginalized gay, transgender and other sexual and gender minority communities. A graduate of Carleton University, she has worked in media and international development in Malaysia, Ghana and now, Nepal. She is an avid listener of Boju Bajai and wanted to share what she's heard with rabble listeners. She spoke to Victoria Fenner from Nepal over Skype and shared some of the best clips from the show. Thanks to Maxine Betteridge-Moes for doing this for rabble radio, and also to the producers of Boju Bajai for letting us air portions of their show and for providing us the picture for our show notes. If you want to hear the show yourself, you can listen here. It's also available on Apple Podcasts. Image: Manjushree Thapa. Used with permission Audio Clips: Boju Bajai. Used with permission

Increasing diversity in the newsrooms of the nation is a topic which has been talked about and strategized around for several decades. But has all that talk resulted in action which has increased the number of people of colour and Black journalists in Canada's news media? Our two guests on rabble radio today say there is still a long way to go. Anita Li of Canadian Journalists of Colour; and Nadia Stewart of the Canadian Association of Black Journalists say our newsrooms aren't there yet. They just co-authored a study called Canadian Media Diversity: Calls to Action. The report was released earlier this month after six to seven months of data collection, meetings with industry leaders, data collection and producing the document. For Li and Stewart, it wasn't enough to produce more statistics. They wanted a living document which provides tangible, concrete which has specific recommendations for changes which, if implemented, have the potential to bring more people of colour and Black journalists into the country's newsrooms. The Canadian Association of Black Journalists and Canadian Journalists of Colour share the same goal -- they want to see a media industry which is equitable and truly representative of Canada's racial diversity and commitment to multiculturalism. Image: Victoria Fenner/rabble

Video gaming is a pastime which keeps growing and growing with no signs that it's ever going to stop. According to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada in a 2018 report, 23 million people in Canada play video games. They say that makes Canada one of the biggest per capita populations of gamers in the world. They also have another surprising figure -- half of those gamers are women. For people not into gaming, that's surprising because the gaming world also has a reputation for being an exclusive club for young men. The 2014 Gamergate controversy happened recently enough that people still remember it. Gamergate was a harassment campaign targeting female game developers, specifically naming feminists as the kind of people they didn't want in gaming. And their contempt extended to anyone who was trying to bring diversity of any kind into the culture. It can be a tough place for anybody who is trying to work with games which counter these values and work towards inclusion, not exclusion. Jean Leggett is a feminist video gamer and game developer from Oakville, Ontario, who actively resists the people she calls "the angry toxic dude bros" by fostering an environment which is accepting of all. In her role as CEO with One More Story Games, she's a frequent speaker at gaming conferences where she talks about gaming and inclusion. She has just received a scholarship from the International Game Developers Association Next Gen Leaders Program. The goal of the scholarship is to bring diversity into the gaming world by supporting participants with personal and professional development opportunities. She talked to Victoria Fenner about the scholarship, and most importantly, why diversity needs to be encouraged in the gaming world. Image: Jean Leggett, One More Story Games. Used with permission.

Too often, the issue of climate change is believed to be an either/or situation, as in, we can have a healthy environment, or we can have economic growth. Farmers tend to be a fairly cautious bunch of people who are slow to change when they perceive that what they're doing is working fine. There isn't widespread agreement that change is necessary. Or when there is agreement, what to be done about is contentious. Just ask a group of farmers about the carbon tax and see what happens. But, of course, this isn't true of all farmers. Today we're going to hear from Stewart Wells, a prairie farmer from the Swift Current, Saskatchewan area who is one of the voices in a new campaign called called Farmers for Climate Solutions. The campaign got underway this week on Tuesday, launched on National Agriculture Day. Farmers for Climate Solutions is being spearheaded by a coalition of farmer-led organizations and supporters, mostly from the organic agriculture sector. Wells is also on the executive of the National Farmers Union (NFU), one of the coalition partners. In December, the NFU released a report called "Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis." It has a lot of facts, figures and ideas about building sustainability in agriculture which balances economics with climate action. He talked to Victoria Fenner about his own 1,400-hectare organic farm where he and his partner grow grains, alfalfa and pulse crops (beans, dried peas etc.), about the NFU report and what farmers can be to to sustain both their livelihoods and the environment. Image: Victoria Fenner/rabble.ca

The long awaited overhaul of Canada's broadcast and telecommunications acts came another step closer to realization last week with the release of the report "Canada's Communications Future: Time to Act." The report was commissioned in June 2018 by the Trudeau government because the current acts are outdated, especially because of all the changes that have happened because of the internet. The report has been a year and a half in the making, and recommends sweeping changes to everything from the structure of Canada's broadcast regulators, to fixing Canada's broken news media and how Canadian content will be funded. And of course, what to do about Netflix, which is the part of the report that's getting the most attention. Today's guests on rabble radio are Barry Rooke of the National Campus and Community Radio Association and Cathy Edwards, executive director of the Canadian Association of Community Television Stations and Users, also known as CACTUS. They say they're disappointed that the non profit community media sector was barely included in the report. Victoria Fenner talked to them yesterday. Disclosure: Victoria Fenner works with Cathy Edwards at CACTUS. You can also read Karl Nerenberg's take on the policy review document last week on rabble: "Trudeau Must Not Ignore Bold Report on Media in Internet Age." Image: CHCO Community TV, Charlotte County, NB. Used with permission