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The 11th Anniversary Making A Difference Awards for 2010/2011... and the winners are...
By Lynn Stadler-Hawkins presented at the 2011 National Conference in Windsor On.
The Making a Difference Awards were presented on Saturday October 15th, 2011 at the annual MBC Conference and AGM in Windsor, Ontario.
These awards are given to honour and acknowledge some of our many volunteers at the international, national and local levels within the MBC network. We also acknowledge the contributions of the corporate, media and adult multiples that have made an impact on our community. This year awards were presented in the Corporate, Adult, Media, International, National and Local categories only.
Please click on the links above for a complete list of past and current honorees of the Making a Difference Awards.
Before continuing with the awards announcements I’d like to thank the MADA Committee: Nancy Young, Pat Harber, Nicole Fisher, and Brittany Hamilton for their assistance with this event, every bit helps!
Local Category
The MADA award in the Local Category was presented to Heather McAuley.
It has been said that a leader is one who can help their fellow citizen by leveraging their ideas and talents through the work of others. Heather McAuley has been a leading example of someone who takes charge and gets things done!
Over the years she has held many positions within her chapter of Windsor-Essex POMBA, from discounts and hospital Rep, Social director, New Parent Coordinator, Prenatal contact, adult social director, and President for 3 years. These are just a few of the things Heather has done with and for the club.
A list of Heather’s accomplishments and activities would be very long, and would show her boundless energy and enthusiasm. But the recurring theme throughout her nominations was that Heather has the ability to make everyone feel welcome, and to inspire others to help make her visions a reality. It was Heather who had a vision for developing a multiples focused prenatal class in Windsor. It is now called “Greater Expectations” and has run 4 successful sessions so far!
When the Windsor Chapter started thinking about hosting the 2011 Conference...it was Heather who stepped up and got the ‘ball’ rolling. As Chair of the 2011 Conference committee, she has been the driving force behind her team of 19 that made this year’s Conference and AGM a great success!
In the words of one nominator “Heather has a way of not only rolling with the punches but helping others roll with their punches as well!”National Category
The National MADA Award was presented to multiple birth parents Christian Martin and Paula Critchley, for taking the need for fairness in EI benefits for Multiple Birth families to its highest level of visibility in our national media and in our courts!
Their journey started in 2008 when they found they were expecting twins. As both parents were working and both were qualified for parental leave benefits, they decided to apply for parental leave with each parent claiming for one child.
The girls came early and Christian and Paula went ahead with their plan to both stay home with the girls and to apply for their parental leave benefits. Originally turned down by EI, they appealed the decision and with the help of their attorney Stephen Moreau, they took their case to a board of referees. In a ground breaking the decision, the federal board of 3 referees granted them the right to receive EI benefits for 2 full parental leaves!
Unfortunately the Government had decided to appeal this decision and have the case heard in front of an Umpire. Again, in Feb 2011, Christian, Paula and Stephen argued their case but the Umpire unfortunately sided with the government and the original decision to deny the benefits for both.
Regardless of the fact that the Umpire sided with the government, their work continues. The girls are already attending daycare and are a few years old! But the couple have plans to appeal the Umpire’s decision and take this to the Federal Court of Appeal! Throughout this process, Christian has been available for interviews and has written about their plight!
To quote an article interviewing Christian.... “At this point, I’m doing this to try to make a difference,” said Mr. Martin, a 35-year-old researcher. “I really see this as being a problem that affects a lot of people and if this can get resolved at some point in the future … it’ll make a difference to a lot of people’s lives.”.
International Category
This years’ recipient of the International MADA Award is Gail Moore.
Along with Gail’s volunteer commitments with MBC as a Board Member from 2004-2011, serving as Board Chair for two of those years and continuing to volunteer as Past Chair and Public Relations / Advocacy Coordinator, Gail served as Vice Chair on the Board of the International Council of Multiple Births (ICOMBO) from 2007 to 2010. In this role, Gail represented Multiple Births Canada with her participation as an ICOMBO Board Member and by attending both the 2007 and 2010 Congresses in Belgium and South Korea.
In 2007 Gail gave a presentation at the International Society of Twin Studies Congress in Belgium about Canada's successful experience creating a National Multiple Births Awareness Day, (which was led by Gail in 2005,) and the resulting increase in media and public attention for the needs of multiple-birth families. Gail followed this presentation with advice to delegates from around the world, which helped other national multiple-birth organizations to celebrate their own Awareness Days, Weeks and even Months, worldwide. Several delegates to these Conferences, including the National Mothers of Twins Clubs (USA), have expressed their appreciation to both Gail and to Multiple Births Canada for helping them to create their own Awareness events.
Gail's example and leadership encouraged the Board of ICOMBO to launch the first International Multiple Births Awareness Week and to complete a very significant update of the International Declaration of Rights and Statement of Needs of Twins and Higher Order Multiples. The document was launched during the International Multiple Births Awareness Week in November 2010, and has since been translated into a number of different languages and published on other multiple-birth organizations' websites, in countries around the world.
Gail designed a media package and communications plan for ICOMBO to assist multiple-birth organizations internationally to celebrate the Awareness Week, hold events and promote the Declaration document. None of this would have happened without Gail's leadership, careful planning, long hours of work, and encouragement to many national organization leaders. This is a legacy that we hope will continue within ICOMBO and other multiple-birth organizations in countries around the world, and we can be proud that Multiple Births Canada had a role in making that happen through the hard work and dedication of one of our very own volunteers!
Media Category
The 2011 Media award was presented to Jill Mahoney of the Globe and Mail.
In 2009, as the Globe’s social trends reporter, Jill started covering the EI benefits story of Christian Martin and Paula Critchley. She has done many articles on the topic of EI and multiple-birth family issues in an objective and fair manner. Her most recent article in Jan 2011 explored the position of the “Government arguing that Child Development was not linked to length of parental leave”...and again in this article she made reference to the Martin Case.
Jill is an award winning journalist whose stories are published nationally and internationally thus ensuring additional awareness of this important issue.
Dionne Adult Award
This year the Dionne Adult Award was presented to an adult twin who truly does make a difference in her community, Barb Cunnington.
Barb has been volunteering with the Temiskaming Chapter for the last 5 years! Although she is in her 70’s, she likes to come out to gatherings and pitch in wherever help is needed. Whether it is offering up bake sale goodies, selling Boo-Boo kits, working Bingos, or getting out for the Mom’s Nights and sharing stories! She’s always there to help out whenever she hears of a family in need!
Corporate Catedory
The first recipient of the Corporate Award is Kevin Fritz and Nick Grey of the law firm Wildeboer Dellelce, of Toronto.
Since Wildeboer Dellelce made the decision to offer its legal services pro bono to MBC to assist our application to become a registered charity, Kevin Fritz (and his articling student Nick Grey) have spent many hours reviewing MBC’s past application, our existing articles of incorporation and by-laws, and making recommendations on how Multiple Births Canada could position itself for a successful new application to become a registered Charity. Kevin has been there for MBC every step of the way in helping us prepare for our Charitable Status application. Kevin has gone above and beyond in gaining an extensive understanding of the work done by MBC, its staff and volunteers. If successful, the impact of MBC becoming a registered charity will last for many years!
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Volunteer Opportunities
