in Chatsworth, Grey Highlands, Southgate, West Grey
November 21, 2023
BY JOHN BUTLER — For as long as we’ve walked on this earth, we’ve had storytellers who have made animals our teachers. The ancient Greek story teller Aesop told the tale of the tortoise and the hare. In West Africa, storytellers called griots have told tales of Anansi the spider who uses cunning to outsmart more powerful creatures. Among the Anishinaabe on whose ancestral land we stand, stories of Old Fox Woman, who teaches and empowers the young, were told to young and old on cold winter nights.
On Saturday November 18 at Flesherton’s Kinplex, more than a hundred people gathered at Grey Highlands Peace Committee’s fifth annual free public Peace Lunch to hear one of our own storytellers and illustrators, Ember Henning, read her book Kerby’s Kerfuffle, the story of a kangaroo who encounters and learns to appreciate a charming group of animals from all continents, each exhibiting a different dimension of diversity. This was followed by a brief film of young adults responding to the book’s lessons about community diversity, equity and inclusion — lessons as important to adults as they are to children. Ember’s book site is on the Ember Hennig Books website.
Ember’s presentation addressed the theme of this year’s Peace Lunch, 'Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – We Are Who We Can Be'. It was followed by a film introduced by Nina Thompson, staff advisor to the Grey Highlands Secondary School’s United Nations Club, in which students of the high school reflect on what diversity, equity and inclusion mean to them.
This exploration of inclusion through the eyes of the young was followed by the first ever presentation of Peacemaker awards by the Peace Committee — presentations that showed inclusion in action in South Grey. ”We are honouring five individuals who have helped create harmonious, safe, resilient, empowering, inclusive community life in South Grey,” said Peace Committee member Stewart Halliday. “These five characteristics of good community life are important because they are pre-conditions for peace, either in local communities like Grey Highlands, or in our global community.“
Award recipients included Jenny Hanley, founder and driving force behind the Hanley Institute, a busy youth centre located in a spacious former church in Flesherton, and Kevin Arthur Land of Priceville, playwright, proprietor of Speaking Volumes bookstore in Markdale and founder of Grey County Cares, a group whose volunteer efforts have raised over $140,000 so far to help Ukrainian families settle in Grey County. Susanne von Toerne also received a Peacemaker award for her tireless work helping Ukrainian families to leave crowded refugee camps to come to Canada, for her legwork assisting them once they are here, and for her medical work with people in refugee camps in Greece and Cambodia. Tim Reilly, described as “the electronic town crier of Grey Highlands” by the Peace Committee, won his Peacemaker award for educating young people in the performing arts at the Hanley Institute, for helping to create high quality performance space in Markdale and Flesherton, and for his civic-minded podcasting. The Youth Peacemaker award went to Aliasger Rehmanji, who for seven years has volunteered as an instructor with Track 3, an organization teaching children and youth with mental and physical disabilities to downhill ski and snowboard at the Beaver Valley Ski Club. Ali credits his volunteerism to the inspiration provided by his brother, who lives with a neurological disability and who was present with other family members to see Ali receive his award.
Ample good food prepared by the St. John’s Glenelg Catholic Women’s League, and provided thanks to a grant from the Municipality of Grey Highlands, helped bring body, mind and spirit together at the event.
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