By Shirley Roberts During the week of May 2nd, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) celebrates their 71st annual mental health awareness initiative. The theme this year is “Let’s #GetReal” and the focus is on ways that everyone can help. Empathy is the key to “getting real” and CMHA provides some great tips [...]
By Jessica Diamond The history of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities in Canada is a rich, complex, and painful story of determination and resilience. Interwoven in this history is the loss of appropriated land and the legacy of enduring pride and pain it created. The first "National Aboriginal Day" was declared [...]
By Rowan Flood The google definition of an acronym is an "abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word." In a sense, acronyms are bits of words that become words themselves. Words have power and meaning, they change alongside our world. LGBTQ+ is an acronym formed from [...]
By Shirley Roberts June 19th was made a federal holiday in the United States in 2021 by President Joe Biden. African Americans have celebrated this day, referred to as Juneteenth, since the late 1800s, but what exactly is Juneteenth all about and do we celebrate it in Canada? Juneteenth commemorates the end of [...]
Here’s to the amazing mothers in our community!
By Adonis Huggins (Adonis is a journalist with the Focus Media Arts Centre ~ a partner of St. James Town Corner) In this episode of St. James Town TV, we visit The Corner@240, a community repair café and tool lending library. St James Town Community Corner is a network hub of various [...]
By Laura McDonald Every year, approximately 12,000 Ontario women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 2,000 will die from it. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in Ontario, but more people in Ontario survive breast cancer than almost every other cancer. In this article, you will find some [...]
By Munira Yusuf Mother’s Day is a holiday that is celebrated to honour the mothers in our lives. It is observed in many parts of the world, although sometimes on a different date than it is celebrated in Canada. Mother’s Day as we know it today was created by Anna Jarvis in the [...]
By Jessica Diamond What is a Mental Health First Aider? Just like with physical first aid, you can be trained in mental health first aid, meaning you’re able to provide immediate and effective first aid to someone experiencing a mental health crisis. What are the signs that someone is experiencing a mental health [...]
By Jessica Diamond April is a time of celebration with holidays spanning different religions. Here is a breakdown of what major holidays are happening this month. Ramadan – April 2 to May 1, 2022 Ramadan is the holy month of fasting, reflection, and prayer for more than one billion Muslims around the [...]
Nalini Pandalangat, Director of Newcomer Health & Specialty Services, Sherbourne Health, is a Registered Social Worker with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers. She completed her PhD at the Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Toronto, and has extensive experience leading projects and programs in the community health, hospital and international development sectors. Her PhD was on cultural influences on help-seeking, treatment and support for mental health problems in the Sri Lankan Tamil community. Her research and program interests are focused on immigrant mental health, gender and health, cultural competence, health care access and health equity. Currently she is part of a core team working on the development and dissemination of a refugee mental health framework.
