Canadians for Women in Afghanistan will be hosting its annual fundraising gala at the Italo-Canadian Club in Kingston on Friday, April 26th, from 5:30 – 9:30pm. The event will feature a sit-down dinner, a guest speaker, a silent auction, and the sale of books and Afghan goods.

The featured guest speaker is Dr. Lauryn Oates, the Executive Director of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, as well as university lecturer, activist, and author. She is a much sought-after speaker from Vancouver who has done extensive work in Afghanistan.

The C4WAfghan fund-raising gala supports education programs for Afghan women and girls. This currently includes full funding of a school for 400 underprivileged girls (including daily hot lunches), extensive literacy programs for young women in many provinces, and an expansive on-line library, among other initiatives. The organization has, in the past, educated 50,000 girls.

The program will also feature a tribute to Rona Mohammad and the Shafia sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti, to mark the 10th year following the tragedy. The Kingston and area community has so far generously supported legacy grants, in their names, to 41 Afghan girls and women over the years. “We need to remember these women and celebrate their positive legacy which has greatly improved the educational opportunities of many Afghan girls and women,” says Shafia Fund organizer Susanne Schurman.

Canadians for Women in Afghanistan is a member-based, not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 with 7 chapters across the country. C4WAfghan is one chapter of the umbrella organization Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. CW4WAfghan is a non-religious, non-political, federally registered Canadian charity. Volunteers work together to advance Afghan women and their families, and to educate Canadians about human rights in Afghanistan. The local Chapter, founded in 2003, has raised over $300,00 to date.

The organization has been grateful for the support from individuals and businesses in the readership area who have acted as sponsors or attended the event.

Tickets are $100 each (including a $40 Income Tax Receipt), available at the Limestone District Education Centre, 220 Portsmouth Avenue, during business hours, or by contacting Madeleine by phone or email (below).

For further information contact:

Madeliene Tarasick,

C4WAfghan President

Parham

613 375-8290

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Save our Prison Farms activists, a collection of farmers, prison rights activists, and community activists of various sorts from Kingston and the surrounding region, began fighting what looked like a doomed battle when the Federal Conservative government, under Stephen Harper, indicated they were bound and determined to close the prison farms in Kingston and other locations across the country.

It was 2009, and the Conservatives were entrenched in power and unafraid of a bunch of rag tag protesters parading around Kingston with placards, blocking the entrance-way to prisons, and packing meeting halls.

The protesters were doubly angry. They were angry that the farms were being shut down, and they were angry that the government was saying agriculture was a dead industry that had become irrelevant in terms of employment.

A year later the farms were gone, but the protests never stopped. The purchase of 23 cows from the Colllins bay herd seemed at the time like a pipe dream, but the people who donated $300 each to buy the animals were happy to invest, and the farmers who took the animals on were bound and determined to maintain the unique genetics of the Collins Bay animals.

Now, in the words of Jeff Peters, the most stubborn of the Save Our Prison Farm activists (he went to jail 3 times) “the cows are ready to go back to prison”.

Except, instead of 23, there are now 33 animals, ready to be reunited at Collins Bay.

When the Harper government was replaced 2 1/2 years ago, the hope was that the effort would soon be over, but even though the new government made sympathetic noises from the start, and local MP Mark Gerretson had supported the prison farms while he was Mayor of Kingston and made them part of his election campaign, But it wasn’t until this week’s budget that it was confirmed. The money is finally in the budget, the farms will be re-opened, the activists have waited and waited and it is time for the cows to come home.

Mark Gerretson said on Tuesday that the credit for all of this must go to the activists, and for once a politician has done a good job of deflecting credit instead of deflecting blame.

The community effort to bring back the farms was uniformly solid, well planned and unyielding. And it will remain that way. The funding is in place, but the details need to be worked out. And the Save Our Prison Farm folks are determined to make sure the new program is a good one.

Councillor Amanda Pulker-Mok will carry the Ontario Liberal Banner in Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston in the upcoming provincial election.

“We are all very happy Amanda has stepped forward,” said local Liberal Association president David Campbell. “Amanda will be a tremendous representative for our riding at Queen’s Park and we are looking forward to doing all we can to help Amanda win the election this spring. Our communities need a Liberal MPP who will focus on building a fairer and better society for everyone.”

In the meantime, Amanda Pulker-Mok will continue to carry out the duties and obligations that come with being a Councillor in Mississippi Mills until the Provincial election campaign begins.

The riding association will host a nomination meeting tonight at the Perth Lions Club, 50 Arthur Street.

Last Wednesday, students in Barry Harding’s grade 6-8 class made the trek down to Kingston to be the first class in the Limestone District to problem solve their way out of four Victorian style rooms. The goal of an escape adventure is to work as a team to find clues, answer questions and solve riddles to escape the room in under 60 minutes. Sherlock’s Escapes uses infamous characters such as Jim Moriarty and Irene Adler to help paint a picture of what it must have been like to be Sherlock Holmes.

The class was split into two groups. One group at a time would begin in Moriarty’s photo lab, filled with vats of chemicals and photos as clues to help them enter the next room, Irene’s Kitchen and then into a store room. Clues from one room would often transfer to the next room. The rooms have an escape rate of around 20% for adults. And while neither team finished, they were each only one room away.

While the other group was waiting for their turn in the rooms, they split into another two groups and created mini treasure hunts for each other. They used cards, a bunch of different kinds of locks the decor of the rooms they helped each other solve the 10 minute mysteries. In one of these puzzles, candy was locked in a box, and the key to the box was placed on a book. To find the book the students had to find hidden letters that led them to a combination lock that led them to a map where the title of the book (China Tides) was marked on a globe.

Makenzie Drew, Erika Wood, Izzy DeSa, Allison Chacon (above), Bella Uens, Keyana Whan.

Erika Wood solving the combination lock.

One Fatality In multi vehicle collision on Highway 401

On November 18, 2017 at approximately 5am The Frontenac detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) responded to a multi vehicle collision on Highway 401 eastbound near the Westbrook overpass in the City of Kingston.

A total of four vehicles were involved in the collision resulting in one fatality and five injured. All five injured were transported to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The deceased male has been identified as Wade YOUNG 27 years old, of South Frontenac Township.

Highway 401 eastbound traffic remained closed between County Road 6 in Odessa and Gardiners Road until approximately 6pm. The investigation is continuing.

The OPP is requesting that any witnesses to the collisions please contact the Frontenac Detachment of the OPP at 1-888-310-1122.

The Tree of Hope – one of the oldest holiday appeals in Southeastern Ontario – begins in Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington November 20. The campaign is expected to help 900 kids with toys, food, clothing and other items.
The Tree of Hope is the annual Holiday appeal of Family and Children's Services of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington – a 123 year old Children’s Aid Society. The Agency has been running holiday appeals every December for most of its existence.

This year, the campaign will feature two “official” permanent Trees of Hope – young evergreen trees planted outside at the Agency’s 817 Division Street office in Kingston and 99 Advance Avenue office in Napanee. Both will be dedicated in special public evening ceremonies – Saturday, November 25 at 7pm at Division Street and Sunday, November 26 at 7pm at Advance Avenue. All are welcome to attend. The Agency is currently running an online contest to name both trees.

All the details about how to give, what to give and where to give it are online at HelpTreeofHope.ca or by calling (613) 545-3227.

K4Paws provides trained service dogs for Frontenac and eastern Ontario. The region covered stretches from Trenton to Ottawa and east to the Quebec border. K4Paws was established in 2013 to meet the growing need for a local service dog training organization specifically for non-visible medically diagnosed disabilities.

I talked with Samantha Knapp, service dog trainer and director for the non-profit organisation, K4Paws, in Kingston. www.k4paws.ca. Samantha has 14 years of dog training experience, and two daughters with trained service dogs. She was instrumental in the establishment of K4Paws, which provides trained service dogs for: Autism, Mental health, PTSD, Mobility issues and Seizures. K4Paws follows the guidelines from Assistance Dogs International (ADI), for education and training of staff, dogs and handlers together.

K4Paws currently owns 33 dogs either in training or with an approved placement partner, and the number dogs is growing slowly. There is no fast track on training. Each trained dog is valued at $20,000 to $25,000. The dogs are placed with volunteer foster homes for the first 18 to 24 months for basic obedience training and specific medical response training. After this training the dogs are teamed up with an identified partner to form a service dog team. Service team training takes place to ensure that the partner knows the do’s and don’ts of service dog handling.

Application to have a dog placed with you requires medical and social references together with interviews and background checks, and not every applicant gets a dog placed with them. Samantha stated, “This can be a very difficult decision for us.”

The K4Paws always owns the dogs they train and their monitor their wellbeing and ongoing need as service dogs. The placement partner is expected to actively be part of a fund-raising program and to cover all vet and feeding bills.

The Kingston City council have come alongside K4Paws with local recognition and the use of public facilities for service dog training. “Fire Stations, Police stations, hospitals and schools have all been very cooperative.” says Samantha.

I was invited to attend a K4Paws dog training class for dogs aged 3 months to 20 months at a fire station. The objective was to expose the dog to distracting sights and sounds to train them to remain under control and show no adverse reactions.

Twelve service dog foster families and their dogs arrived at the fire station, where the duty fire crew consisting of Jeff Oljejnik, Bob Chan, Ryan Vivian and Brad Dowdwell, obligingly put the fire tender through a series of slamming of metal doors, bells, whistles and of course the air horn while running the big diesel.

The dogs, for their part, had to walk around and follow all the normal commands without showing any signs of distraction with the sudden noises.

Then, with the dogs and their adult foster handlers in a half circle in front of the open fire hall door, Ryan Vivian came out in his fire retardant suit and respirator looking like an alien apparition. He had dog treats, but only for the dogs that did not back away from this scary phantom. Most dogs responded well.