Running Around the Sauvé House

The Sauvé Year can be quite intense.  A key part of staying healthy and balanced during the year is fitness.   Some Scholars attend daily spinning classes at the gym; many participate in weekly yoga led by Simone, a fabulous instructor; others take up the latest workout regimens P-90x and TRX; and others yet participate in pickup matches of Sauvé Soccer (dominated by the Kenyans Paul and Esmael, as well as by Mohammed and Josh).  Yet this post will describe the sport this year’s Scholars have taken to a new level of adventure and competition: running (i.e., the second most boring sport after curling).

Early in the Sauvé Year, Steph and Ethan, along with Steph’s boyfriend Fred, participated with thousands and thousands of runners in the Montreal Half Marathon.   Conditions weren’t perfect: their training regimen was pathetic; the race day weather was scorching; Ethan didn’t sleep the night before.

Yet it was a blast.

Ethan achieved his goal of breaking Sarah Palin’s Half Marathon time.  He also avoided humiliation by beating, in a photo finish, a guy pushing a child in a stroller.  He did, however, lose to a man in a full Batman suit.  Which was okay, since Batman is a superhero.

Steph was on track for winning the Half Marathon, had her boyfriend Fred not held her back. 

The runners had a great Sauvé cheering section, in Esmael, Simangele, Dechen, and Yimin.

Steph then, despite taking the winter off from training, ran another half marathon in April, narrowly missing her two-hour goal by just 16 seconds.  In recounting her performance, Steph noted, “At one point the course was so windy that I could see all of the runners literally being blown over to one side. It was hilarious to watch until I also got pushed in the same direction.” 

Other Sauvé Scholars have also taken up the cause of running.

Mohammed, a smoker, is not one of them.  He does, however, occasionally cycle.  So in order to explore the city together, on several occasions Mohammed hopped on his bicycle to join Ethan on his training jogs.  It didn’t work out well.  As Mohammed said, “I got tired despite biking while Ethan wasn’t tired and he was running.”

Josh, hands down, wins the Adventurous Runner prize.   He doesn’t run on streets, or even paths.  He just points his body at Mont Royal’s thick forests, closes his eyes, and runs straight through the trees, ponds, mud, etc.  He also doesn’t run on flat surfaces - only straight up the side of the mountain.  Inevitably, he returns from his runs full of thorn pricks, mud, and sometimes gashes. 

A few months ago, Josh was out with a friend on one of his crazy wilderness jaunts, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a giant white ball, deep in the forest.  He screamed, “PUFFBALLLLLLL!” Leaving his jogging companion bewildered and unaccompanied, he ran straight through the woods to collect his lunch.  A puffball, as we all later learned, is a gigantic mushroom – the size of a soccer ball.   When he brought it home to the Sauvé kitchen, we were convinced that eating it would kill us.  Josh sautéed it with butter, garlic, salt, and pepper, took the first bite, didn’t die, and it turned out to be one of the yummiest snacks prepared in the Sauvé House all year.

Oh, and one last thing.  Desiree McGraw, Executive Director of the Sauvé Scholars Program, and a former competitive runner and coach, is planning a comeback during the 2012 - 3 Sauvé Year, including potentially leading weekly Sauvé Scholar runs.  To next year's Scholars: take her up on it!  And look out for those puffballs.

Tim Brodhead Visits Sauvé House For Tea Talk

On March 15, the Sauvé Scholars had the distinct pleasure of welcoming Mr. Tim Brodhead as a Special Guest for a Tea Talk.  Mr. Brodhead has had a long and distinguished career, including serving the last 15 years as President and CEO of The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, Canada’s largest private foundation.  He also recently joined the Sauvé Foundation’s Board of Directors.

Mr. Brodhead is an incredibly warm, sincere, and brilliant man.  He understands, with immense depth and breadth, the relationship between various dimensions of our world – e.g., the environment, economics, military, politics, culture.  He is also a social innovator nonpareil.  Through his career, he has tackled in Canada and abroad, many of the challenges our world has had to confront.  This was a wonderful Tea Talk.

Mr. Brodhead began his remarks by asking each of us what we thought was the biggest challenge facing our generation.  Our answers included: AIDS, extreme poverty, climate change, genocide, lack of empathy, and ‘passive activism’.  

Mr. Brodhead impressed upon us the urgency to make our societies more resilient, by which he meant one that is more inclusive to its most marginalized elements, and that uses social innovation as a way of tackling critical challenges.

In the context of developing solutions to these challenges, he drew an interesting distinction between charity and philanthropy.  He described charity as instinctive, not calculated.  He said the impulse for charity is rooted in two of our most natural emotions - empathy and compassion. He explained that there would always be a need for charity.  However, he viewed philanthropy as a more deliberate and strategic development of solutions and deployment of resources to social problems.  In this context, he explained that money is only a facilitator – not a cause – of social change.

Mr. Brodhead also noted that we are now less engaged in, and less willing to trust, institutions (e.g., government universities, churches, foundations). Instead, we want more responsibility and independence. And our political system is sclerotic -- unable to adapt or compromise.   As an American, I could relate.

Despite all these challenges our world is facing, Mr. Brodhead concluded by presenting a positive way forward.  He defined citizenship as contributing and belonging to the collective.  He said that participation gives us an identity as part of the community.  While government has traditionally occupied much of this space, it is pulling back, and does not have to do all of the things we expected in the past.  Therefore, he said, we need to rethink government because people need to be more engaged.  We need to develop a different value system, we need to be more engaged citizens, and we need to drive social innovation through creative problem solving.  How we shape this value system, and its related institutions, is critical to meeting our future challenges.

LOVE YOUTH SHARE STORIES WITH SCHOLARS AT SAUVE HOUSE

Sauve Scholars hosted LOVE youth for a story sharing session at the Sauve House. It was an amazing honor to hear from such inspiring and resilient youth who have undergone so much struggle but have overcome and are still healing from their experiences. LOVE (Leave Out Violence) is an award-winning youth violence prevention organization. LOVE was founded on the belief that youth challenged by violence can be agents of change, capable of transforming their own lives, investing themselves in their communities, and making the world a safer place. We had a privilege of having with us the Founder of Love, Twinkle and Satoko Ingram who is a fundraiser for LOVE. One of the Staff also joined the youth.

LOVE programs benefit both the individual and the community. LOVE youth have experienced many forms of violence including: gangs, domestic violence, racism, bullying, drugs, physical, verbal and sexual abuse, weapons and self-harm. They have been witnesses, victims and/or perpetrators. Working together in a safe supportive environment, they share their stories and develop the skills, confidence and passion to become part of LOVE’s violence prevention teams in the community. Because LOVE youth combine their experiences with their newly gained knowledge, they are uniquely effective in promoting awareness, influencing attitudes and effecting positive social change in their communities.Since LOVE began in 1993, LOVE youth leaders have reached hundreds of thousands of children, youth and adults, reducing violence in schools, homes and neighbourhoods.

The youth shared a lot about their stories and some of them were so emotional and deeply touching. Scholars also shared their stories and inspiration. Twinkle asked scholars to share their goals, motivation  and aspirations even in coming to the Sauve program. The Scholars talked from the heart and the youth felt moved and touched by scholars stories. I would really recommend next cohort of scholars to partner with LOVE youth since this young people are not only courageous and resilient but also exceptional. They all have achieved so much in their own ways especially in personal growth and development.They have tremendous support from fellow youth, staff and the Montreal community.

Using LOVE’s educational programs in photography, video, broadcasting and journalism combined with leadership training, youth analyze and document the causes and impact of violence and propose reality-based solutions. LOVE youth use the media tools they create and the life skills they learn to promote non-violence youth-to-youth across cultural, political, racial, religious, socio-economic and geographical boundaries.

The LOVE organization was founded by Twinkle (Sheila) Rudberg, whose husband Daniel was killed by a fourteen-year-old gang member on the streets of downtown Montreal.  Daniel had gone to the aid of an elderly woman who was being assaulted when the teen stabbed him to death. During the youth’s trial Twinkle learned that the young perpetrator’s life had consisted of being in gangs, taking drugs and spending hours watching violent movies.  She began to see him as a victim of violence as well. In 1993, as  statistics on youth violence became alarming, Twinkle founded LOVE, a community-based organization dedicated at first to reducing the amount of violence in entertainment and the media and raising awareness about its effect on the psyche of young people. Twinkle then sought a way to reach marginalized youth to help them reject violence.

 In 1994, a McGill faculty committee introduced Twinkle to journalist and teacher Brenda Zosky Proulx who was planning a journalism-based violence prevention program for youth who had been challenged by violence. Brenda was joined by Stan Chase of Dawson College’s Department of Professional Photography and a teacher of at risk youth.  Together they created the LOVE photography and journalism program in 1995, followed by LOVE’s leadership and school outreach programs in 1996 and 1997.  Video, broadcasting and spoken word were later added.Today thousands of LOVE youth have become leaders in their communities. Like Twinkle they set an example, showing how they can overcome the tragedy of violence by investing themselves in their communities.

LOVE has several Programs:

Media Arts Program (MAP)

Through the Media Arts Program (MAP) youth who have been witnesses, victims and/or perpetrators of violence, learn how to identify, analyze and document the issues surrounding the violence in their lives and develop reality-based solutions to end violence.  Ideas are formulated and stories shared in “editorial meetings” at the beginning of each media training session. As part of the process, essential life skills such as critical thinking, verbal communication, listening, social awareness, problem solving, take hold.

LOVE’s instructive programming in Media Arts includes photography, journalism, videography and broadcasting. Through the lens of a camera, the written word and their voices, these young people articulate the impact of violence on their lives and explore positive alternatives. Programs are led by media and social service professionals and are offered at local community colleges or universities or in LOVE offices.

Leadership Training

Youth who have completed MAP, graduate into Leadership Training, where they develop the skills, confidence and passion to become part of LOVE’s community violence prevention team. Based on the principles of youth engagement, the training includes public speaking, producing and performing spoken word, producing videos and public service announcements, and group facilitation. These young leaders work in schools and the communities to promote and encourage youth participation in violence prevention by establishing Violence Prevention Committees. Their unique combination of knowledge, experience and opportunity, enables them to be effective in promoting awareness, influencing attitudes and effecting change. To complement this program, each year, a 5-day intensive Leadership Training Camp is held in Haliburton, Ontario. Youth Leaders from across the country come together to further enhance their leadership skills which they can then take back to their schools, neighbourhoods and communities.

School and Community Violence Prevention Outreach Program

LOVE Youth Leaders educate their peers, professionals, and concerned community members about violence and violence-prevention. Youth Leaders use their presentation and group facilitation skills, as well as educational tools they have created, to examine the impact of violence and share violence-prevention strategies. Each year Leaders educate more than 40,000 youth and community members.

Violence Prevention Committees

Violence Prevention Committees are established in elementary, middle and high schools in priority communities. Youth Leaders and LOVE Staff co-facilitate the committees which meet regularly throughout the school year, to create projects that communicate a message of non-violence to the entire student body. The projects might include photojournalism exhibits, school newsletters, zines, comic strips or public service announcements about violence and its prevention. The goal of the committees is to facilitate students’ ownership of the violence prevention initiative in their schools and neighbourhoods.

LOVE Youth have continued to sparkle light of Hope and Resilience in communities all over the world.  It was an honor hosting them at Sauve House and I hope the partnership and collaboration will last and continue with future scholars. I bet there is so much to learn from this youth.

Sauvé Scholars at the Garnet Key’s Leadership Symposium

The run-up to the leadership symposium event at Concordia University was mixed with excitement and tension. Excitement because this was the first time both the Garnet Key and the scholars were organising an event of this nature. Tension because for the Garnet Key, the spring season heavily coincides with university exam season, and for the Sauvé scholars the spring season signals the end of the Sauvé program hence less time and room for other engagements. However, what began as tentative dates finally gave way to actual dates and room 760 of the Henry F. Hall Building at Concordia was soon booked. The Keys in their Maroon blazers were resplendent in leading the event on the 26th of April which was graced by Sauvé Friend and fellow Kenyan, Lady Flora Terah.

The Symposium started with presentations and discussions on Youth leadership and the environment, led by me, then followed by the role of peace education in creating a value based society that can help in prevent violence, by Mohammed Shabaan. Stephanie Jensen-Cormier then talked about the role of China in leading the green energy movement. A call for other societies’ including the Canadian society to understand and learn from China. I must admit I never knew the Chinese have clear climate change policies before I met Stephanie.