The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on how people live their lives. How we work, shop, conduct business and experience entertainment have been transformed. As we continue to emerge from long-periods of restrictions, organizations such as the Uptown Waterloo Business Improvement Area are trying to re-ignite the passion for coming together again for events that bring people together in a real way. Tracy Van Kalsbeek executive director of the UWBIA speaks about bringing people back to uptown.
Events are vital in the country’s economic recovery and the mental wellness of countless community members. However is there hesitancy in going back to normal with events? We explore the importance of such events and speak with Waterloo resident Sarah about comfort in participating in the community as COVID-19 restrictions ease.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
Fitsum Areguy is a Black activist and writer who grew up in Kitchener. He draws on years of experience as a community worker and advocate for youth rights and disability justice. Voted Waterloo Region’s ‘Best Local Writer’ in 2020, he has published in Canadian Dimension, The Waterloo Region Record, Briarpatch Magazine, The Community Edition, and Korea Expose. His interests focus on human rights, misuses of power, and community development, connecting local stories to provincial, national, and global issues through reporting and analysis. Fitsum is also the co-founder and project director of Textile, a literary publication and writing mentorship program, where Fitsum and I work together.
As the pandemic has impacted workers across every and any industry, we talked about the importance of upholding the complexity of local stories, finding a rhythm as a journalist during the pandemic, and of course, the launch of InsideWaterloo, an independent media initiative publishing investigative and personal stories of identity and belonging not otherwise covered by traditional media in Waterloo Region.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
Music for this episode was courtesy of Dylan Prowse.
Peter Snow
You may remember our show from 10 May 2021 with Peter Snow from The Soviet Influence, a politically active, indie rock band from southern Ontario. Peter spoke of a live, online event in August for prisoner justice.
The Soviet Influence have partnered up with the Toronto Prisoner Rights Project and produced a compilation record and streamed show this past weekend to raise funds and awareness of this cause. CKMS Community Connections is re-broadcasting that show, recorded by our sister campus radio station from Guelph University, CFRU-FM. It features performances from The Soviet Influence, Friday Empire, Skye Wallace, and Joni Void, along with interviews and information about the project.
The Toronto Prisoner’s Rights Project (TPRP) is a volunteer organization of former prisoners, people with loved ones inside, front-line workers, artists, researchers, educators and students. They engage in direct action, public education, and mutual aid to shed light on the harms caused by incarceration and connect prisoners with social, financial, legal and health supports. They’re committed to abolition and building sustainable communities rooted in community care, transformative justice, and accountability.
Tomorrow, Tuesday 10 August 2021 is Prisoner Justice Day. Please join the memorial at the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Trinity Square tucked between the Eatons Centre and the Marriott Downtown. Between 5pm and 8pm there will be a vigil in solidarity with those who have died while incarcerated as well as to show support for prisoners’ rights. Former prisoners and their loved ones will share their stories and truths. There will be activities, music, performances, food, swag and more! Folks are encouraged to show up to demonstrate solidarity with prisoners and those impacted by incarceration. No one is free until we are all free.
You can support the Toronto Prisoner Rights Project at https://www.torontoprisonersrightsproject.org/get-involved-and-support All proceeds go to mutual aid projects including the Prisoner Emergency Support Fund, Jail Hotline, and Good Food Boxes, and support our direct action advocacy work (through digital organizing tools and protest supplies). Supporters can contribute a monthly donation on Patreon that includes exclusive TPRP merchandise as a thank-you.
Or you can make a one-time donation to the Prisoner Emergency Support Fund, started by the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project and the Toronto Prisoners’’ Rights Project. It’s a team of volunteers that are organizing to support prisoners, who believe that people need access to community support and not human cages. The fund was originally launched as a response to the pandemic. Given the clear gaps in care that have been revealed by the volume of applications, they are continuing to raise funds so long as there are needs to be met. This fund is intended for people inside prisons and jails and recently released prisoners. People behind bars often need support to contact their loved ones or purchase essential items on their canteen. Recently released prisoners need access to funds for housing, food, clothing, and physical and mental health supports. Families who still have loved ones behind bars need funds for expensive phone bills and canteens.
And you can download the Toronto Prisonsers Rights Project Compilation EP by Musicians For Mutual Aid. The record features new music from The Soviet Influence along with tracks from Skye Wallace, The Burning Hell, Sean Bertram, Friday Empire, Davita Guslits, Joni Void + Jerry Quickley, and Kayla Hagerty.
John is an actor whom stands at 6’5, covered in tattoos. Though he looks intimidating, once you get to know him, he comes off super friendly and a kind soul to be around, He is also a Dad, writer, director, producer, stuntman, podcast host, cage rattler, mover and shaker and so much more. Get to know him!
Recent numbers released fromStatistics Canada indicated that 1.5 million women in Canada lost their jobs during the first 2 months of the pandemic. This led to unemployment rates as high as 20% among women, compared to13% among their male counterparts.
The YWCA Canada has since developed a Feminist Recovery Plan which emphasizes that women’s rights and gender equity could see the biggest rollback if left unchecked.
Rosalind Gunn, Director of Marketing and Communications of the YWCA Cambridge and Jennifer Gordon, Director of Advocacy at YW Kitchener-Waterloo discuss the impacts of the global pandemic their organizations have seen on women in the workplace in the Waterloo region.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the
Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
This piece features an interview with president of Bingemans in Kitchener, Mark Bingeman. This piece is a follow-up to our interview with Explore Waterloo Region CEO Minto Schneider from last week.
In our discussion with Bingeman, we discuss how the pandemic has affected Bingemans, one of the biggest hospitality organizations in Waterloo region. Bingemans has several types of facilities including banquet halls, water park, arcade, bowling alley and much more.
As of July 16, Bingemans was allowed to open many more of its indoor facilities as Ontario moved into Step 3 of its reopening plan.
Bingeman is happy that the company is bringing back staff who may have been laid off during COVID while he expects bigger events like Oktoberfest to come back in Fall, in a modified, covid friendly form.
— This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
How do couples cope with the stressful events of the COVID-19 pandemic? How will singles embark on dating as we emerge from months of lockdown measures? Waterloo region based clinical psycho- therapist, Janine Fisher to talk about the effects COVID-19 has had on clients in her community.
Fisher gives helpful advice for couples and singles on how to move forward as we embark on another phase of the new normal.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
COVID-19 has impacted billions of lives around the globe since March of last year. During these unprecedented times, the role of non-profit organizations has been key in combating the impact on our most vulnerable populations. As businesses grappled with adapting services, so too did local non profits.
CKMS News spoke to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region and the Wilmot Family Resource Centre to learn more about how they adapted, lessons learned and key takeaways moving forward.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
After 15 years on King Street West in Kitchener’s downtown core, the Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre announced its new location. The 54-year old organization will be moving to 715 Fischer-Hallman Road after construction is completed.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre – known to many for its annual festival in Victoria Park – provides a wide variety of services for new immigrants to the community and operates an interpretation and translation business that saw service volumes rise to nearly 20,000 service requests last year.
We spoke to COO of the Multicultural Centre, Lucia Harrison to learn more about their relocation and what the organisation has been up to recently.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
CW: This episode features discussion of sexual assault.
Through the pandemic survivors of sexual assault in the Waterloo Region have been increasingly accessing available supports.
On this episode of CKMS News, we interview Andrea Arthur-Brown, the Director of Services for the Sexual Assault Support Centre Waterloo Region. We discuss what it is that the Sexual Assault Support Centre does, the rise of sexual assault within our region, and the rise in individuals seeking support for sexual assault. We also talk about how we as a community can reduce the instances of sexual assault within our community.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant project and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news, and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca
You can follow us on twitter @radiowaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
This piece features interviews with Baitul Mosque volunteer Nabeel Rana, Cambridge mayor Kathryn McGarry and Coalition of Muslim Women KW President Sarah Shafiq.
The mosque in the Galt area of Cambridge was severely vandalized this week in an act of hate, and Rana estimates the damage at about $15,000 to $20,000.
The vandalism is under investigation by the Waterloo Regional Police.
The Cambridge community has come together to support the mosque while the vandalism comes off the heels of the murder of four members of a Muslim family in London last month.
Update: 1 man has been arrested so far in connection to this incident.
— This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
This piece features an interview with Explore Waterloo Region CEO Minto Schneider. In the interview, we touch on how hard the tourism sector has been affected throughout the past 17 months and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Several hospitality and tourism places, like museums and theme parks haven’t been fully open for two summers now. Schneider discusses the importance of Step 3 in Ontario, which begins on July 16, as well as touches on just how important health and safety protocols continue to be.
Schneider doesn’t have an estimate on financial losses over the last year due to COVID, but imagines it is very high.
Many businesses were initially upset about Waterloo Region being held in step two of Ontario’s reopening, but further understood the reasoning. The region was held back in the province’s reopening because of a number of Delta variant virus cases in the area.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
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Robyn (Burns) Moran and Lisbeth A. Berbary are academic workers in the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo. In early 2021, they published their article “Placemaking as Unmaking: Settler Colonialism, Gentrification, and the Myth of “Revitalized” Urban Spaces”, taking up the example of Goudies Lane, a corridor in downtown Kitchener which stretches from Queen Street North to Ontario Street.
Their work on Goudies Lane came out of Robyn’s dissertation research, where Robyn foregrounded her interest in anti-gentrification with support from her supervisor, Lisbeth, in thinking through the related theory and methodology. Particularly during the pandemic, when public spaces have seen increased use, they have also seen increased surveillance as a consequence of placemaking: so how public are these public spaces?
Together, Robyn and Lisbeth talk through the growing tensions between public space, public memory, and how colonialism engages at those intersections by walking through their methods, findings, and presenting key reflections.
This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.
Music for this episode was courtesy of Dylan Prowse.
This piece features an interview with Guy Freedman, president of the First People’s Group, who consulted on the Prime Minister’s Path in Baden. The interview took place on July 5.
The group released its recommendations on June 30 in preparation for a Special Council meeting for the Township of Wilmot on July 5, 2021.
The first People’s Group advises removal and cancellation of the whole PM’s Path in Baden, including all existing statues which lie behind the administration building. The final decision will be up to the council.
Over the past couple months, The First People’s Group has engaged the public in terms of the future of the Path. There was a large response to the engagement with 461 responses in the community engagement forum. The future of the path became further in question following the discovery of unmarked graves of children all over Canada.
— This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
Today’s Waterloo Region Weekly Roundup episode focuses on the June 22nd Region of Waterloo council meeting. This was a rather full agenda as it was the last council meeting prior to the summer break.
Topics discussed at this meeting included the Climate Action Plan, several housing projects, and an update regarding the Region’s child care plan since closing the 5 regionally owned centres last year. There’s also a discussion regarding plans for the Charles Street terminal redevelopment and ReallocateWR’s proposal for an Indigenous Community Hub on that land.
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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
This piece features an interview with Township of Wilmot council member Cheryl Gordijk.
Gordijk speaks about the anti-racism rally which took place in Wilmot in early May, as well as the presence of hateful posters plastered around the township recently. After this interview, the person who was allegedly responsible for the posters was ruled out for charges by Waterloo Regional Police.
Gordijk also talks to CKMS about hate-motivated issues in Wilmot over the last year. Mayor Les Armstrong shared a White Lives matter post on Facebook in 2020, hate graffiti was seen in Baden, while the SJAM statue has been a strong source of contention.
The interview took place on June 4 2021.
— This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
This piece features an interview with Coalition of Muslim Women KW director of programming and services Sarah Shafiq. The interview was on June 22, a little more than two weeks after the murder of four members of a Muslim family in London.
It was determined that the motivation for the attack, by 20-year-old white man Nathaniel Veltman, was hate-motivated.
Shafiq discusses the mission of the coalition, as well as what the organization has done to support the nine-year-old boy who lost the rest of his immediate family.
Shafiq also touches on the importance of allyship and what non-Muslims can do to help combat islamophobia.
— This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.
Check out the archived versions of this program and other episodes onradiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative atcanada-info.ca.
You can follow us on twitter@RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca
Toronto Prisoner Rights Project
Prisoner Justice Day
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