February • 2022
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Early Childhood Educators Shine During Pandemic, Playing Critical Role for Children, Families, and Economy When people think of essential frontline workers during the pandemic, doctors and nurses deservedly top the list. But for parents of young children, including health care workers, another profession quickly comes to mind:
early childhood educators. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged early childhood educators and highlighted their critical role in facilitating children’s development and making it possible for parents
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to pursue their career aspirations. The YMCA of Greater Toronto started offering child care more than 50 years ago. Since then, the charity has become the largest not-for-profit licensed child care provider in Ontario. It operates more than 300 locations across the region run by more than 3,000 child care professionals. “Our experience and expertise have allowed us to step up throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, wave after wave,” says the charity’s Senior Vice President of Child and Family Development, Linda Cottes. “I’m so proud of how our educators continue to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape by providing child care and before and after school programs to families struggling with the pandemic. Importantly, our staff also stepped up with emergency child care to make it possible for people in essential frontline roles to continue working.” In fact, child care proved essential in keeping economies operating
throughout the pandemic. January’s Ontario government decision to accelerate COVID-19 booster vaccinations for early childhood educators underscored their importance to both families and Ontario’s economy. With children under five years of age still not eligible for vaccinations, child care remains on the frontlines of the pandemic today. Over the past two years, educators have made safety adjustments from screening and donning masks and face shields to finding creative ways for children to still connect and have fun. Throughout the pandemic, the Y has remained focused on providing safe, reliable, and accessible child care. And as providers of licensed care, the Y’s child care team continues to deliver YMCA Playing to Learn™—a curriculum that gives children a strong developmental start to help them reach their full potential in life. “Children are so resilient, especially when they have access
to familiar faces, albeit covered by a mask, and a curriculum that supports their learning and development,” Cottes says. “Our highly qualified early childhood educators are truly helping our community shine because the spark that each employee lights in children today will brighten over time for generations to come.” With opportunities for meaningful career growth, the future for early childhood educators themselves also looks bright. “I started in this profession as a young woman and the Y has nurtured my personal development, allowing me to develop in my career,” says Cottes. “Now I find joy supporting the development of the bright young educators who will lead our sector for future generations.” To learn more about joining the Y’s child care team and a life-long positive impact on children and families, visit ymcagta.org/childcare/join-our-child-care-team.
Celebrity Heroes Use Their Platforms to Raise Awareness for Environmental Protection Actress and model Cara Delevingne has launched a new eco-charity: Initiative Earth, aiming to lobby governments to repair damaged ecosystems worldwide. A message on the charity’s website states: “Initiative Earth is a charity that enables people to restore ecosystems and revive communities around the world. We are building systems that are aligned with nature. We are here to co-create a world that thrives.” It was first revealed in 2020 that Cara was setting up the charity, with the aim of “seeking to influence public opinion and to influence governmental and other bodies.” The charity plans to hold festivals, seminars, conferences, lectures, tours, and courses. A friend of Cara’s previously said: “Cara knows she has a lot of influence and is determined to use it for the wider good.” Cara also recruited Deepa Mirchandani, a sustainable businesses specialist, and Jack Harries, the son of filmmaker
Rebecca Frayn, to work on the project with her. A message on Initiative Earth’s Instagram page further sets out its goals, stating: “Our mission is ambitious: we want to co-create a world that thrives through happier
and healthier cultures globally. Our method, however, is simple. We want to ignite participants’ imaginations through practical education to restore ecosystems, revitalize the community, and regenerate local economies.
CARA DELEVIGNE © REUTERS/BANG-SHOWBIZ
SHAILENE WOODLEY © REUTERS/BANG-SHOWBIZ
“We promote a vision where people, economies, and nature thrive together. We enable people to create systems that are aligned with nature.” SHAILENE WOODLEY IS ON A MISSION TO SAVE THE PLANET’S OCEANS Activist and actress Shailene Woodley is planning on doing everything she can to protect the wildlife in the Earth’s oceans. In an interview with Shape magazine, she said: “I was raised by two psychologists, so empathy was a big deal in our household. Everything was about trying to understand everyone else’s experience. Not necessarily agreeing with it, but having empathy for whatever they were going through. From there, I looked at nature and the natural world the same way.” The star continued: “I don’t want to save the ocean because my mind says it’s the right thing to do. I want to save the ocean because I can feel that she’s suffering. I can feel that turtle drowning
from the plastic in its belly. “I can feel the temperatures rising on the algae that is killing other species. For me, everything is based in feeling and emotion. I’m a progressive, and I want to change the world—I feel a responsibility to try to do everything I possibly can to make things feel a little better.” It comes as the movie star joins forces with eyeglass brand Karün, who create glasses using recycled fishing nets and metals. Shailene and Karün hope to see actual change in the way humans treat the seas. She explained: “Those microplastics—there’s no way we will ever clean them up. No matter how many eyeglasses we make. No matter how many other material goods we create using them. What we can change is consuming that plastic in the first place. I’m always much more focused on the human side of the environmentalist mission, because until we address that, nothing will happen.” (Source: Reuters) ADVERTORIAL
Conservation for the Future: Protecting the Far North’s Breathing Lands The arctic coastline of Ontario’s Far North spans 1,290km—nearly the same distance as the drive from Toronto to Fredericton, New Brunswick. The sparkling waters contain some of the greatest biodiversity and intact wilderness remaining on the planet, and yet, these tidewater shores are unknown to many southern Ontario residents. This massive interface of ocean, wetlands, and free-flowing rivers, home to beluga whales, walruses, and polar bears, as well as billions of migrating and breeding birds, drives the vitality of a broader ecosystem and supports many First Nations. Indigenous leaders have sought to safeguard their home territory for decades. Now, the region is finally emerging as a critical natural buffer against the climate emergency and extinction crisis. The newly proposed Mushkegowuk National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) reflects a new form of preservation that conserves biological diversity, harnesses the power of nature in mitigating climate change, and emphasizes the importance of traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous sovereignty.
“We have been the stewards of these lands and waters for millennia,” says Jonathan Solomon, former Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Council. “Now we want to protect the coastal and marine ecosystems that underpin the Omushkego way of life for future generations.” The Conservation Area would encompass the entire coastal corridor of northern Ontario between Manitoba and Quebec, extending offshore into the federal waters and Nunavut islands of James and Hudson Bay. Cree Elders refer to this unique seascape as the “Birthing Place,” says Lawrence Martin, the manager of Mushkegowuk Marine Conservation, part of an Indigenous council representing communities in the area. This name reflects the coastline’s remarkable population of iconic marine mammals and long-distance migrating birds that have been pushed to the brink of extinction elsewhere—and it’s one of the primary reasons local communities want it protected. Martin hopes Canadians will rally behind an exciting, once-in-alifetime initiative spearheaded by a partnership between Omushkego
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communities, Wildlands League, and Oceans North. This past August, the federal government committed to taking the next step in protecting over 90,000 square kilometres and started the process of creating Canada’s newest NMCA. Not only does the opportunity to represent a huge contribution to the country’s objectives of protecting 25 percent of its land and inland waters by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030, but it would also help achieve our climate goals. Radiating inland from the coast, the Far North is globally significant for yet another reason. Here lies the third largest wetland in the world, which holds more carbon per square metre
than a tropical rainforest and with the Mushkegowuk Council is referred to as the “Breathing begins establishing such a designaLands” by Elders. tion for James and Hudson Bay. Working with locals, academic “We’ve always recognized how this researchers, and government, sciplace gives life. We want to save it— entists have started studying the not only for ourselves but for the whole biodiversity and cultural values of earth. We all depend on this being the region, as well as measuring its kept intact.”—Lawrence Martin, role in mitigating climate change. Mushkegowuk Council Says Anna Baggio, the conservation director at Wildlands League: Parks Canada has a mandate to “To have something so big, so identify and protect outstanding whole and with all its parts working examples of the country’s 29 marine together is what makes this place areas. So far, only five in the Great special. It’s the intersection of water, Lakes, Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific wildlife, and carbon, and it’s part of regions are formally represented by the identity of the people who live NMCAs and other marine parks. there. From a conservation standThe federal government’s collabo- point, it gives you a look at what rative, nation-to-nation agreement we could preserve for the future.”
CONSERVING AN OASIS OF
Marine Life WILDLANDS LEAGUE IS HELPING TO PROTECT CANADA’S OCEAN
WILDLANDSLEAGUE.ORG
