- When eating out, consider trying to be content with yourself enough to be able to buy salad and if absolutely necessary bread.
- For your home: buy Preferably some kind of bread other than white bread. Honestly, breads like Rye, sphelt, rice and flat breads are usually better than whole wheat. Even gluten free bread is best.
- Perhaps make your own flat breads, that way you will save more money, and use less yeast.
- Buy vegetables in bulk.
- Buy beans in bulk.
- For your meals: have salad once a day, (preferably with dark lettuce like romaine, and mix in things like spinach and or grated carrots, and cale and arugala.
- Then for the second time of the day have frozen vegetables.
- To budget wisely: write down everything you spend money on right after you spend your money. That way you'll know what you have and what you've spent. Reward yourself for the less you spend.
- Buy your milks or alternatives in bulk.
- If you want to watch a movie, buy your movies and watch them at home.
- If you want pop corn, buy yourself a popper from Wall-Mart for $15. The pop corn that comes with it is only $7.99, and you can make a lot of it.
- Find affordable places to shop such as Kenzington Market at 65 Nassau Street, and 487 Church Street. Also Bloor West Village, Food Basics and No Frills.
- Make yourself smoothies for breakfasts and or fruit salads out of fruits like apples, and grapes and affordable fruits.
- Get things from community gardens and farmers markets of local produce.
- For free healthy activities: ask if any church in your area or worship place is holding any social community outreach activities.
- Go out for all day breakfasts and ask if you can have some tomatoes, or cucumbers or some variation ov vegetables on the side.
- Go for walks.
- Volunteer as doing good for others brings happiness.
- Get in touch with Food Share Toronto, and sign up for a good food box, and look for a Good Food café near you. Look for it all at www.foodshare.net
- Have some activity to distress yourself. As in, find things to laugh about, or things to look at or touch that don't cost a lot to help yourself smile.
- Listen to music, whichever kind you like.
- Find and hang around people that can validate you, or their presence and compliments can help you raise self esteem.
- Buy things like laundry detergents, shampoo, soap, dryer sheets, dish detergent, tooth paste, hand cream, and shaving lotion in larger quantities, so you won't be constantly spending money.
- Read used books but clean them off right when you get them home to avoid having cock roches in them.
- Join a subsidized gym (usually in community centres.
- Join another interest oriented agency or class that's affordable.
- When going out to eat again, find Indian restaurants with buffets, or Mediteranian falafel places, as they're more affordable.
- Also find Chinese markets or malls where food is a little more affordable when you get two sides or three for a nominal fee.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Healthy Living Tips
By Neena Saloiya
April 18th
Today, Frequency Feminisms talked with activist, journalist and community advocate, Sakura Saunders who is well known for her work in placing checks and balances on the activities of mining companies, especially Barrick Gold. Sakura is the editor of protestbarrick.net- a website dedicated to tracking and documenting both the abuses perpetrated by Barrick Gold (Canada’s largest mining company) as well as the worldwide indigenous led community struggles against Barrick Gold and other mining companies. Most of the worlds mining operations take place on indigenous lands and because indigenous peoples often have little to no power within their countries political systems, their resources are routinely exploited, their local environments (including water sources) degraded and destroyed and their human and worker rights violated with impunity. Spring (April-May) is shareholder season in Toronto and Sakura described the convergence presently underway- leaders and activists from around the world will converge in Toronto in the next few weeks and will share their experiences and learn from one another. She’s involved with the Community Solidarity Response Toronto (CSRT).
The CSRT “works to bring the voices and experiences of communities impacted by Canadian extractive industries to Toronto, where much of this industry is based. As Canada is a leader within the international mining industry, we recognize the pressing need for a movement within Canada to demand accountability in this sector. We also recognize that any activism related to these industries must take its direction from the impacted communities themselves. As such, CSRT works in alliance with affected communities and aims to be responsive to their calls for support”.
If you would like to keep informed of future actions and developments, you can join CSRT on Facebook.
Here are a few upcoming mining (in)justice actions:
Once a year, the board of directors for the world's most powerful gold miner converge in downtown Toronto. Be there to Confront Barrick Gold!
WHAT: Protest and Press Conference outside Barrick Gold's Annual General Meeting
WHEN: Wednesday, April 28. 11am protest
WHERE: Metro Convention Center, 255 Front St. Toronto
WHO is Barrick Gold? Barrick is the world's largest gold mining company, founded and chaired by Peter Munk. Barrick is one of the biggest forces pushing Corporate Social Responsibility as an
alternative to government oversight. With a former executive on the board of the Canadian Pension Fund, and a former Prime Minister on their board of directors, Barrick enjoys public funding and diplomatic support.
WHO is coming to speak out: Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer, Akali Tange Association
Mark Ekepa, Chairman, Porgera Landowners Association Idolia del Carmen Bordones Jorquera, Representantes Sectoriales, Diaguita Huascoaltinos Jaime Nibaldo Ardiles Ardiles, Representantes Sectoriales, Diaguita Huascoaltinos Zafar Baluch, Baloch Human Rights Council
WHY Protest Barrick? Barrick takes advantage of inadequate and poorly enforced regulatory controls to rob indigenous people of their lands, destroy sensitive ecosystems and agricultural land, support brutal
military and security operations, and sue anyone who tries to report on it. Impacted communities are coming to Toronto to share their undeniable perspectives and shed light on this criminal mining giant.
Come out and support them!
Representatives from the Porgera Landowners Association and the Akali Tange Association from Porgera, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea will share their experiences with Barrick Gold and announce their demands of the company. Their visit to Canada follows the release of an Amnesty International report detailing forced evictions and house burnings near Barrick's Porgera Mine. see report: “Undermining Rights: Forced evictions and police brutality around the Porgera gold mine,
Papua New Guinea”
Members of the Diaguita Huascoaltinos Indigenous and Agricultural Community, who recently had their claim against the Chilean State admitted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, will speak
out about Barrick's operation on their lands without their Free, Prior and Informed Consent. see Diaguita Huascoaltinos announcement of the IACHR complaint.
More info: protestbarrick.net. If you are interested in helping make food, art, or music at the event, please contact sakura.saunders@gmail.com
RSVP via facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.
*May 7-9, Toronto! mining (in)justice: a conference on Canadian Extractive Industries*
Mining (in)justice: at home and abroad is a conference on the Canadian mining industry (including Tar Sands) set to take place in Toronto on the weekend of May 7-9, 2010. It will feature leaders in
movements against Canadian mining companies both within and outside of Canada and provide space for growing our own movements in alliance with communities impacted by this industry.
This is a follow-up conference to last year’s mining conference, which brought over 20 front line defenders to share their stories and strategize solutions to ending corporate impunity and strengthening
the struggles against destructive mining projects around the world.
This year, we are expanding the conference into a 3 day event, providing more space for participants to meet each other, form alliances, and plan actions to foster a movement in solidarity with impacted communities.
for more information and to find out how to get involved!
solidarityresponse.net, e-mail: csrtoronto@gmail.com
Stay tuned for information about the conference schedule and line-up of speakers…
We also talked about the recent pardon granted to Canada’s Rosa Parks- Viola Desmond. Viola Desmond, a black woman, was forcibly removed from a movie theatre in November 1946 for sitting in the whites-only section of a movie theatre. Her activism had a lasting impact on the African-Canadian community and led another African-Canadian woman (who herself and her son) had had a similar experience to found a newspaper to discuss the issue. Viola was granted a free pardon by the lieutenant-governor of the province of Nova Scotia and an apology by its premier for the institutional racism she had suffered (this was intended as an apology for her family and for all African-Canadians). Her sister and remaining family was present for the historic event- an apology that came almost 63 years later. We talked both about the relative obscurity of Viola Deomond compared to her counterpart in the States (Rosa Parks) and also about the tendency in some mainstream media outlets to pronounce the apology as somehow indicative of an end to institutional and systemic racism. The apology and free pardon came about a month and a half after a similar apology for the distruction of Africville in 1967.
Finally, we discussed the recent decision of the provincial government to slash the special diet allowance for people on Ontario Works and ODSP as part of a broader discussion on eating and living healthy and affordable. Check out the next post for healthy living tips from our very own Neena Saloiya.
Friday, April 23, 2010
April 11th
FF-WPR spoke with Ruth Ruth Stackhouse, an amazing activist, a member of the psychiatric survivor community and director and founder of Friendly Spike Theatre Band. Friendly Spike involves persons with disabilities and psychiatric survivors who routinely organize theatrical productions which serve to empower and educate. Ruth has a background in theatre and eventually started to incorporate more of her personal experiences into the work. Ruth is involved in an upcoming production slated for September 2010 and she is always looking for interested volunteers.
Contact Ruth and get involved in this vibrant and grassroots initiative!
Phone-416.516.4740
Email- friendlyspike@primus.ca
Website: www.friendlyspike.ca
Ruth Ruth also told us about a recent event that listeners might be interested in attending:
The Force For Cultural Events Production (FORCE) presents This Is Not A Reading Series (TINARS) with the generous support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council For The Arts.
Visit: www.pagesbooks.ca and www.tinars.ca
WORDS ON THE WALL: GEOFFREY REAUME IN CONVERSATION WITH RUTH RUTH
To celebrate the re-issue of his groundbreaking study, Remembrance Of Patients Past (University of Toronto Press), scholar and activist Geoffrey Reaume will conduct a walking tour of the wall surrounding the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH ) grounds. He will then guide the group to the Gladstone Hotel, where he will have an on-stage conversation with Ruth Ruth Stackhouse of Friendly Spike Theatre Band. Three of the installation pieces from The Story Behind The Wall, an exhibition by Workman Arts (WA) inspired by Reaume’s text, will be featured on-stage. There will be a silent auction of bricks painted by local artists. Proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Psychiatric Survivors Archives of Toronto (PSAT) for the purpose of purchasing commemorative plaques detailing the history of the 19th century patient-built wall and other aspects of unpaid patient labour. Marc Glassman, Executive Director of This Is Not A Reading Series, will host the evening event. – A TINARS event presented by University of Toronto Press, Gladstone Hotel, NOW Magazine, Torontoist.com, Take Five On CIUT, Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto and Workman Arts.
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen St West, Toronto
Wed Apr 21: 8:00pm (Doors 7:30pm) $5 (Free With Book Purchase)
EVENT ITINERARY
•Silent Auction Viewing Begins 4pm, Gladstone Hotel Ballroom,
•Wall Walking Tour 6pm, Main Entrance, CAMH, 1001 Queen St West
•Interview / Auction 8 pm (Doors 7:30pm), Gladstone Ballroom,
REMEMBRANCE OF PATIENTS PAST Historian Geoffrey Reaume remembers previously forgotten psychiatric patients in his groundbreaking study, Remembrance Of Patients Past, by examining in rich detail their daily life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane (now called the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health - CAMH) from 1870-1940. Psychiatric patients endured abuse and could lead monotonous lives inside the asylum's walls, yet these same women and men worked hard at unpaid institutional jobs for years and decades on end, created their own entertainment, even in some cases made their own clothes, while forming meaningful relationships with other patients and some staff.
Using first person accounts by and about patients - including letters written by inmates, which were confiscated by hospital staff - Reaume weaves together a tapestry of stories about the daily lives of people confined behind brick walls that patients themselves built.
GEOFFREY REAUME is an associate professor in the Critical Disabilities Studies Graduate Program at York University.
RUTH RUTH STACKHOUSE is a proud member of the psychiatric survivor community. She studied theater in New York City and is currently Theatre Director of the Friendly Spike Theatre Band. A long-standing activist, she has protested against institutional confinement and the exploitation of patient labour.
THE PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVOR ARCHIVES OF TORONTO (PSAT) is dedicated to ensuring that the rich history of people who have experienced the psychiatric system is preserved for our community and the wider community as a resource from which everyone can share and learn. PSAT is a grass roots organization that is run for and by psychiatric survivors and seeks to reflect the broad diversity of views that are expressed by all people with a psychiatric history however they choose to self-identify. www.
THE STORY BEHIND THE WALL is a mixed-media and cross-disciplinary project created by artists of the Workman Arts Project for Scotiabank Nuitblanche 2009. Six artists chose six former patients from the Toronto Hospital for the Insane as depicted in Geoffrey Reaume’s book Remembrance of Patients Past – Patient life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940. Their goal was to create figurative sculptures to creatively and expressively tell the stories of these individual patients from the past who have mostly been confined to a history of silence.
WORKMAN ARTS (WA) facilitates aspiring, emerging and established artists with mental illness and addiction issues to develop and refine their art form through its arts training programs, public performance/exhibit opportunities and partnering with other art organizations. As well, WA promotes a greater public understanding of mental illness and addiction through the creation, presentation and discussion of the artistic media. www.workmanarts.com
FOR MEDIA / INFO
Geoffrey Reaume: Andrea Wilson, awilson@utpress.utoronto.ca
PSAT Silent Auction: Andrea White, psychsurvivorarchives@gmail.
TINARS: Chris Reed, coordinator@tinars.ca
We also heard a rebroadcast of a podcast from rabble.ca. Host, Meghan Murphy speaks with Allissa Westergard-Thorpe, a principal organizer with the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN). The talk is catchily titled "The F Word Vs The Olympics." The talk focused on the resistance and impacts of the 2010 Vancouver games and makes connections between feminisms and anti-olympic organizing.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
March 28th
FF-WPR spoke with Flora Egoki Terah. She is a mother, activist, and author of “They Never Killed My Spirit, Although They Murdered My Only Child.” Flora is a survivor of gender-based electorial violence while attempting to run for Parliament in the contentious 2007 Kenyan elections. A few months later, following her gruesome attack from which she sustained major injuries, Flora was yet again devastated as her 19 year old son,- a promising athlete, was beaten and then murdered by thugs as retaliation against her. Flora, in one of the most moving interviews we have done on our show, talked about her struggle to get women involved in government, her community development work and her efforts to prevent the spread of the AIDS epidemic. She chronicles her work and her personal struggles in her book, which she hopes to re-write with greater detail. In Kenya, Flora noted women are supposed to be seen not heard and are under the sway of patriarchal traditions embedded in the constitution and as such are grossly under-represented in governing bodies. Flora is now residing in Toronto and works with the Committee for Multi-Party Democracy. She is founder of Terah Against Terror; a group that works to empower women survivors of violence and create income generating opportunities for them. Additionally, the organization works with youth and encourages peaceful solutions and constructive community development initiatives. Flora pointed out that much of the post-election violence in Kenya was instigated by greedy politicians who were successful in pitting youth against youth. Flora is available to speak and share her story and experiences. She sells copies of her book for a donation of $10 which goes to Terah Against Terror. She recently returned to Kenya to participate in the constitutional reform process, but was forced to return to Canada due to great risk to her life. Flora has a Facebook group: Join Terah Fight Terror. and Visit, xterror.org. for more information including links to other media appearances and speaking engagements.
We also talked about the trial of Angela Davis. We will continue this conversation on our next show.
March 21st
The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the United Nations General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.
To mark the day, FF-WPR spoke with dub poet Lillian Allen whose activism and poetry relates to the struggles of the African-Canadian community for equal treatment. She talked about the origins of dub poetry, its revolutionary significance, (especially in the late 80s pushing Canada to to end ties with apartheid South Africa). She spoke about major women dub poets and their contribution to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. To follow Lillian Allen’s work and that of other dub poets, visit www.dubpoets.com.
We also spoke with film-maker, Malinda Francess about the Movement Projects latest production: How We Forgot Here. Listeners will “be immersed in a pulsating, multi-artistic journey of memories that reveal the complexities of migration and settlement in Toronto”. The interactive production asks: how did we get here, where are our ancesters from and what have we forgotten? The production runs March 22-28, 2010 at the Wallnut Studios. For more information (including ticket prices and purchase locations), visit themovementproject.ca.
We went on to explore the wage differential between single black women verses married black women and married and unmarried white women- a telling reminder of the racialization of poverty and the continuing legacy of racism, colonialism and gendered exploitation in America, and by extension, Canada. A new study entitled Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and Americas Future shines the spotlight on this alarming wage gap. According to the report, single, middle age white women have a median wealth of $42,600, which is still about 60 percent of single white men; the median wealth for single black women is only $5. Married white women have a median wealth of $167,500, but married black women have a median worth of $31,500
Finally, we heard aclip from the Dismantling the Sweat Shop City event that took place in Toronto the past weekend. Faria Chaudri from the Shelter, Sanctuary and Status campaign talked about the raids on anti-VAW spaces, the recent changes to the immigration system and the refugee quotas and the challenges of resettlement. The event also explored ways in which we can move towards creating a sanctuary city in Toronto, rather than a metropolis that is built on the exploited labour of immegrants, migrants and refugees who struggle for access to basic services and to live with dignity in Canada.
Additional resources:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/
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