The Midweek team came back from a week off with an array of new stories — enough for three more great podcasts!
It’s white space right now, but those defending the golf course in Kanata say that with the pandemic, greenspace is more important to people’s health than ever. (Photo by Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition)
Podcast 1: Ottawa’s public school board has been discussing whether to create a special position that would bring an Indigenous person to the decision-making table with trustees.
Midweek’s Avanthika Anand spoke with Madison Wigwas about her experience as an Indigenous student in Canada’s public school system before she moved to Ottawa to attend university.
A sigh of relief went up from many in Kanata in late February when the Ontario Superior Court ruled that Clublink cannot redevelop the Kanata Golf and Country Club.
Local residents and the City of Ottawa had been locked in a legal battle to save the greenspace for over two years. Midweek’s Natasha Bulowski found out more about why the struggle was so important to the community.
And Midweek reporter Angelica Zagorski introduced us to Carleton University student Tinu Akinwande, speaking with her about the photo series she started for Black History Month called Black Women … Blossom, in honour of her late friend Abel Mengistab. The series has been gaining a lot of attention because of Akinwande’s poetry about her raw experiences celebrating blackness.
Podcast 2: The ongoing pandemic has been hard on lots of two-legged critters, but it’s also putting the squeeze on many with four, six and eight, and even those who slither. Midweek’s Jeff Pelletier spoke with Paul Goulet, co-founder of Little Ray’s Nature Centre east of Ottawa about the tough financial challenges facing Canada’s largest exotic animal rescue effort.
Midweek’s Max Bakony takes us into the story of Kathy Elarte, who fell in love with the sound of the harp more than 25 years ago and quickly found out that this love was also a doorway to a whole career of connecting others to harps they too could love through Vixen Harps.
Yet another pocket of life hit by the COVID-19 restrictions are the nomadic sculptors who travel to events around the world to create temporary works in snow, ice and sand. Midweek’s Sam Campling spoke with sculptor Patricia Leguen (top photo — she’s the one on the right) about her art, the pandemic, and her latest creation in North Battleford, Sask.
Podcast 3: One year of pandemic has had a lot of different impacts on our lives, and one of the largest and most important has been increased awareness of the need to look after each other — and ourselves.
Midweek’s Eden Suh introduces us to a woman in Ottawa who is delivering donuts to local seniors to keep their morale up during the isolation, while reporter Ciaran Morgan spoke to a teacher in Niagara Falls about managing mental health while teaching remotely.
Reporter Erika Ibrahim then takes us into how restaurants and social service agencies in Ottawa are teaming up to provide food for locals in need.