The goal of KACL is to ensure that all people with special needs have the opportunity to live a meaningful and satisfying lifestyle and interact as an equal in their community by providing continuing opportunities for personal growth through education, training, support, advocacy and an informed public. This goal and other information may be found on the Association’s website at www.kacl.ca. Through this website we have attempted to maintain communication with our membership, the community of Kenora, and with others who share similar goals.
The Association continues to work on various inclusion projects including an Accessible Trail, further expansion of Art Partners, Fitness Friends both in terms of duration and domain (drama, music, communication arts), expansion of the Community Wellness Program in terms of duration, and finally, in the developing the ideology / counter ideology to support inclusion.
Urban planners have recognized the incredible benefits of urban trails in terms of reducing health costs, increasing open spaces and eco-friendly environments. The Association has recognized that the battle for inclusion has to be fought on every issue and at every level to make any overall progress. So if it is a good thing to have trails for the population at large than it a good thing to have trails that the disabled can use. Ideally, all trails would be accessible, just as all city streets should be accessible. Symbolically, one may valuable.
Initially, we hoped to make an urban trail system radiating out from the local Recreation Center. However, the local business community and town were not supportive due to upfront costs and disruption. During the past year we had identified one trail that we believed we could have the town, seniors, low income groups and the disabled unite around and have commenced to set up a strategy to make this trail accessible. The Association believes an accessible trail would appropriately symbolize the ever increasing common path that the disabled are increasingly permitted to share with the population at large. Who knows one day our vision of "A meaningful and satisfactory life" may have the addition "on a common Path".
The Association has been somewhat frustrated with the slow pace and lack of leadership from the rest of the community and has gradually increased out involvement in providing leadership to the project. Fund raising efforts will be started during the coming year.
From September 17th to 21st Art Partners, an outreach program of the Association displayed approximate 20 works at HoJo’s
Coffee and Books store in conjunction with the United Nation’s 26th annual International Day of Peace. The message of
the exhibit entitled “Mandalas for Peace” was “Make art- not war”. As explained by Art Partners art consultant Jen Shumka,
"It reflects the desire by Art Partners to have greater involvement in community activities,"
A second project of some of the Art Partners was participation in the Lost Treasures Project, a Kenora Community Memorial Art Project for missing and murdered woman. The project involves an artistic demonstration that supports native families who have lost loved ones to racialized and/or sexualized violence in Canada. Artists were asked to create an art memorial honoring one of the missing or murdered women. The completed art projects will be on display October 4, which is National Sisters in Spirit Memorial Day, between 11AM and 4:30 PM at the Kenora City Hall, Kenora Court House, Sunset Gallery and the Kenora Museum.
The Art Partners participants who decided to participate including Kevin Bennett, Shauna Degagne, Lori Gray, Russell Havill, Garry Popapynitz, Jennifer Shumka and Karla Smith created a 24”x60” memorial painting. The group of artists was asked to think of Sylvia Guiboche, a 20 year woman who has been missing since July 2003. The group was given only her name, her birthday, the fact that she was Métis and that she was ~8 months pregnant when she went missing. The group research and discussed the project. The name “Sylvia” means “belonging to the forest” and words that describe an individual born under the cancer sign are gentle, conservative, feeling, nurturing and contemplative. Everyone who participated enjoyed painting their version of Sylvia’s forest, using vibrant color or reds, oranges and greens. The symbolic fall tree represents Sylvia and the falling leaves represent her lost baby. Also depicted in this painting is a turbulent lake, a whirling wind shoving and stirring up everything within the forest. Some of the artists commented that they were trying to paint a soft, gentle painting for Sylvia, but her story and the energy created around the painting called for texture, strong colors and movement. Some of the murals produced by various artists are included in colour at the end of this report.
The concept of fitness friends involved hooking up people of like interests – one on one in the hopes that long-term friendship will grow as they are nourished by the common interest. The first interest that was seized upon was physical recreation both because the prominent athletic prowess exhibit by people of Kenora (bragging intended) and the recent restructuring of the recreational center, which had significant input from our Association. Matching has taken place on a one to one case basis and the program has become fairly well established. We have begun to research several competing areas of interest including music, drama, quilting and a program already existing in Fort Francis called Best Buddies. To date lack of funding and staffing has prevented further expansion. With three recent staff hires in Children there is hope that greater progress will be made in the next 6 months in Children services and hopefully continued into the adult programs.
As reported in our last reported to the Regional Council, our Community Mental Health Support Services program received a $45,000 Trillium grant to permit our previous 5 month Community Wellness program to continue full time on an annual basis for at least another 18 months. This program involves individuals with physical and developmental handicaps, adults with mental illness and seniors in a low income category and included many recreational and leisure activities. A learn to swim program was added along other activities engaged in by the participants during the last year.
Our Children Services efforts at inclusion have continued to develop and possibly may take on the group tag of Kid’s Galore rather than the “Monday Night Youth Group” or “Saturday Sports Group”. The broad approach is to identify non handicapped individual graduates (approximately grade 5-6) of our Daycare program who have been identified as being good role models, and who have shown elements of sensitivity to other children with special needs and then invite them to participate in social activities in blocks of approximately 4 weeks. Each 4 week block will themes such as our Fall Theme such as Cooking and Halloween. Different nights will have sub titles such as a Glamour Night (perhaps more “girl” oriented), Drama Night and Sports night. Themes will develop primarily around interest of younger consumers on our case load, and then the two groups of individuals The Research continues unabated.