Show Lineup

WindSisters | Unfinished Business | Seeking Refuge | Home Word Sound | Murdered, Missing & Music | If A Tree Falls | Library in Progress | Happy Tails

Note from the Producer

If you had a 25th hour, would you spend it with us? We hope you would.

This week, we wanted to explore the theme of community, which ties all of us together. Each of our pieces explore different kinds of communities, from poets to dog-lovers. Communities shape and are shaped by the people involved in them, so we wanted to focus on a few phenomenal Ottawa residents, like Mike Nilson, who is working at Makerspace North to bring an old racecar back to life. We really hope something in our show inspires you and motivates you to strengthen your links to the communities you love.

Our sub-themes for this show are Halloween and the Canadian federal election, because both are tied to the time of year. We wanted this show to exist in this moment, and be forever tied to October 2015, and no other time period. We wanted to capture this month, with a political rant and a Halloween interview, to further contextualize our pieces. Communities are constantly changing and developing, and this is a snapshot of where the communities in our documentaries are right now.

We hope you enjoy what we made,

– Kevin Nimmock, Show Producer

THE SHOW

THE MINI-DOCS

Founded by Linda Begin in 2011, WindSisters is a female motorcycling group based in the National Capital Region. The more than 400 members work to promote a positive image of classy lady riders while fostering a sisterhood of friendship united by two wheels. The 25th Hour spoke with Linda and fellow member, Christine about the group, their bikes and the thrill of the ride. Accompanying this piece, we have an interview with Professor Lori Stinson, who teaches Women and Gender Studies at Carleton University. Here, she discusses traditional gender roles, and how an all-female motorcycling group can break them down.

From the beaches of Greece to the borders of Canada, there has been a worldwide discussion in the last few months. The death of three-year-old Alan Kurdi in September highlighted the disasters happening from the Syrian refugee crisis and touched many people emotionally.

In Ottawa, the outcome was no different. Many local residents have felt the need to step up after seeing the photo and new organizations have been created. Refuge 613 is a new organization that is helping those in Ottawa sponsor, donate, volunteer and becomeadvocates in this crisis. The University of Ottawa’s Refugee Hub has also created the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program, which is connecting local lawyers with people looking to sponsor families. As well, many Ottawa based churches are stepping up and taking in families themselves, something they have been doing for many years now, as seen with St. Martin de Porres church in Bells Corners.

Yet, our story starts off with someone not directly involved with the Syrian refugee crisis, but someone who knows the struggle of being a refugee all too well. Abid Jan sought refugee in Canada after fleeing his home country of Pakistan in order for the safety of his family. Today, Abid Jan works with the United Way Ottawa. The United Way Ottawa is asking for any donations to help them support Syrian refugees.

Every year, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word welcomes performers from across the country to spit their strongest poems. A team representing the Urban Legends in Ottawa frequents the festival.

Among the team’s performers, Apollo the Child is the most decorated. This year, Apollo will be captaining the Urban Legends team, joined by performers Infinite Mind, Playto, Dali and Girly Boy.

Urban Legends was formed to address a need in Ottawa’s existing spoken word scene. Founder Just Jamaal wanted to create a space where Muslim people and young people could perform comfortably, outside of a bar-setting. Performers Girly Boy and Dali are both 14-years-old, but they each said they feel accepted, despite their age.

“I think that in many ways they are better than I am, and it has nothing to do with age,” fellow Urban Legends member Playto said. “It has to do with the stories they tell and how they tell them.”

Over the last eight years, the group has grown to provide a safe space for many marginalized groups of people, including people who do not identify as cisgender like Girly Boy. Non-cisgender people do not identify with the gender they were assigned to at birth.

As the group continues to grow, Dali said she will continue to try to welcome diverse performers.

“I want people to know this is an open community.”

We wanted to do this story because we believe that slam poetry is a captivating medium and that the particular story of Urban Legends and its members fit the mandate of the 25th Hour very well. The theme of this course is marginalization and Urban Legends was founded for marginalized people. As Apollo the Child says in our piece, Urban Legends was created to allow a space for Muslims and youth to share their voice. This has proven to be successful as the subjects in our piece discuss how the poetry community has created a comfortable environment regardless of religion, gender orientation or age.

Countless Indigenous children have been affected by the Canadian governments reluctance to investigate crimes against Indigenous women. As the year’s pass and these crimes remain unsolved it looks more and more likely that these children will inherit a country that refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of their suffering. Leaving them without the satisfaction of justice or even an understanding of where their mothers have gone.

On Parliament Hill dozens of Canadians gathered to protest the governments inaction and bring light to this dark reality.

The City of Ottawa launched the development of its Urban Forest Management Plan on Sep.23, 2015. As one of the city council’s strategic initiatives, the plan aims to provide a more structured approach to protect Ottawa’s urban canopy, in order to preserve forestry and safeguard the environmental, social and economic benefits of trees.

The City has multiple policies, programs and regulations in relation to trees, but there has been no wider, longer-term plan or vision for Ottawa’s urban forest till now.

Citizens such as Daniel Buckles have started to mobilize their communities to take action. Buckles started the Champlain Oaks Project to safeguard the bur oaks in his neighbourhood, which are actually remnants of an oak forest that once lined the Ottawa River from Chaudiere Falls to Deschenes Rapids. Several of the oldest trees, Buckles told the 25th Hour, existed years before Confederation, making the trees part of a rich Canadian (and pre-Canadian) heritage.

This map shows all the oak trees in the Champlain Park neighbourhood that pre-date confederation (1867)

The project is starting this fall and is slated to take a year and a half to complete. Councillor David Chernushenko heads the city’s environment committee and stated in late September that citizens’ opportunities to get involved will begin in November.

For more information, please refer to the City of Ottawa’s website:

http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-consultations/environment/urban-forest-management-plan

Information on the Champlain Oaks Project can be found here:

http://www.champlainoaks.com/

You notice some empty shelves when you step into Centennial Public School’s library. Several books have cracked spines and yellow pages. Some even have food stains and torn edges. This library hasn’t been updated in 15 years and it shows.

Judy Kemp, the library technician at the school spends her days trying to save these old books with glue and tape. She even occasionally scouts for books from Value Village or Friends of the Ottawa Library Association. “I’m certainly spending time outside of my 2 days a week trying to be creative in ways of getting more books for the library,” she said.

But even that doesn’t do much to add to a library, which repairs books at a faster rate than it receives new books.

A larger and updated collection of library books will do more than look pretty on the shelves. It will improve the literacy of children in the school. Kemp knows this from personal experience in teaching two of her children how to read.

“It affects everything. It affects math, science, not just the languages. And it also affects their self-esteem. If I can do anything to promote reading in other children I will do that, because I saw how much it affected my own children,” she said.

Indigo Love of Reading Foundation has since decided to adopt the school to raise funds and add books to this library’s collection. With books expected to fill the shelves and take the place of old books, students are looking forward to “read and watch their world grow”.

Our pets do their best to bring us joy and comfort in life, and so naturally we should do the same for them.

Love, support, and rehabilitation. That is what the Canine Water Wellness centre in Ottawa offers injured and high energy canines and their less fury owners. The wellness centre is equipped with a heated saltwater pool where owners can either join their pups or have Amelie guide them through their lap swimming sessions year round. All it takes is for a young women like Amelie to be given the opportunity to work with these amazing animals for remarkable rehabilitations to happen. Amelie offers her help to these dogs much like her dogs have helped her.

Much like Heidi Maglaras, who is a foster and volunteer for a rescue group called Bullies in Need. This group is a non-profit dog rescue program specifically for dogs that are of the American Pit Bull Terrier breed. Bullies in Need help foster and find homes for Pit Bulls outside of the Province of Ontario, in which they are currently banned.

You can visit their websites at http://www.caninewaterwellness.com/ and http://bulliesinneed.ca/ for more information on how you can become involved.