UWI to host 2nd benefit gala
Proceeds go to students in need
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Also numbered among those to be honoured are:
- Justice Dr Irving Andre of Dominica and Keith L Forde of Barbados;
- Jamaican Kamala-
Jean Gopie and Barbadian Dr Karl Massiah; as well as - Canadian Dr John Stewart.
All the honorees have contributed to the UWI, in addition to the Caribbean and Canadian
communities. Two organisations are also being honoured -
The gala will take place on March 26 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto. "Under the patronage of Dr G Raymond Chang, immediate past chair of CI Financial, Chancellor of Ryerson University and himself an honorary graduate of UWI, the gala promises to be an evening of celebration, embracing Canada's rich diversity while raising funds for students in the Caribbean," said a release from the university.
Proceeds from the Toronto gala will benefit students through the UWI Scholarship Fund and the UWI Haitian Initiative. "This benefit gala is about supporting students, celebrating the good works of those within our community; and hopefully inspiring others by recognising the valuable relationship between Canada and the Caribbean," said Chang in the release. "This year's honorees demonstrate our common thread of education, giving back, and service to community, which has added to the rich fabric of Canada."
The first man in history to achieve the rare triple title of World Champion, Olympic
Champion and World Record Holder, Bailey is also the first Canadian to break the
10-
Also Jamaican born, Lee-
Building off the success of its inaugural Benefit Gala last year, and with such a strong Caribbean community in Canada, UWI is striving to develop a successful event that will continue to strengthen the relationship between Canada and the Caribbean for years to come.
The 2010 Benefit Gala was sold out with 460 attendees. Approximately $230,000 was raised, resulting in 17 scholarships being awarded to students in need.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/pfversion/UWI-
RETIRED athlete Donovan Bailey and businessman Michael Lee-
“I believe that if you’re going to make an impact, you’re going to make it with the
youth,” says Barbadian-
On most weekends, you’ll find Forde speaking to youth in churches and volunteering
with various non-
“For us blacks, and especially the blacks who are turning to drugs and turning to violence, I think we as a society have to show them an alternative, so this is the area I am putting a lot of my energies into and hoping to have a significant impact,” he says. As a role model for generations following in his footsteps, Forde’s career as a Toronto police officer is certainly worth emulating. Since joining the force in 1972, he has worked uniform, investigative and undercover drug duties, moving from sergeant to inspector to superintendent to deputy chief. He has also won numerous awards for his contributions to the community, including the Chief of Police Excellence Award and City of York Honour for Community Service.
Despite his achievements, Forde humbly says he does not necessarily see himself as a role model, but he does understand he has a duty to present a good example for the next generation and to give back to a city that has been good to him.
With a strong upbringing grounded in the church in Barbados, Forde learned from his
parents — a painter and a housewife — about the importance of self-
“That was driven into me early that you have to give back — to whom much is given, much is expected. I still believe that today, even if I didn’t believe it then,” he muses.
Forde also learned about the importance of co-
The journey from Barbados to the Toronto Police Service wasn’t a direct journey, however. When he immigrated to Montreal in 1969, he began working and taking night courses in commerce at Concordia University. It was when he noticed there were no black police officers in Montreal that he decided to join the service. But he chose to try his luck in Toronto instead, where he felt he would be more accepted because they were more actively recruiting.
“That happens in life with visible minority people,” he says. “If a position is not attainable, they don’t go after it because of the rejection … But if the police service is showing that they’re hiring, then you’ll go after it.”
After becoming an officer, Forde often worked in very dangerous situations, especially while serving in undercover drug operations. But even then, he knew he was doing a service to the community and never had any reservations about putting his own life in danger.
“Policing is a calling; it’s a service. It’s not a service you provide today but not tomorrow. It’s not a service where you pick and choose who you want to serve and when you want to serve. It’s a total commitment, 24/7. So when I put my uniform on and I go into calls, I go into calls to do the best.
I cannot be petrified or worried about being scared.”With that courage combined with a deep reserve of ambition, Forde worked hard to climb the ladder of the police service. While he did not envision becoming deputy chief of police, he did know from the beginning that he wanted to rise up through the ranks of the service. But working his way up was not always an easy task. Even in a city like Toronto, Forde encountered obstacles founded on racial tensions. He explains that although the atmosphere is much better in 2008, this was not always the case, within and outside the police service.
“You would laugh at me if I were to say there’s no racism in this police service … We have come leaps and bounds, but we are from society, and society has racism,” he says.
Even so, Forde explains that he uses encounters with racism from his peers to empower himself. Most cases are a matter of ignorance, which he says can be combated with knowledge; he can “show them how they are being ignorant of a fact or condition, or situation.” The real problem, he says, arises when someone allows their power in a position of authority to be influenced by their prejudice.
“This is where we have real problems, and that is the area I speak out strongly [against] — because then fairness does not prevail and you are destroying an organization.”
Forde’s career and community work is an example of the exact opposite, of how an
organization can flourish with the right people and the right attitude. While the
police service and the city of Toronto continue to recognize how lucky they are to
have him championing for the safety and well-
“I’m the luckiest man in the world because I got to do in life what I always wanted to do,” he says. “From where I am, I have the leverage to do so much more. People listen to what I have to say. And you can take that leverage that you have and be a catalyst for change.”
You can email your letter to editor@canadianimmigrant.ca. Please include Letters to the Editor as your subject line and ensure your letter is in the body of the email (no attachments please).
“I’m the luckiest man in the world because I got to do in life what I always wanted to do.”
After more than three decades of climbing the ranks of the Toronto Police Service, deputy chief of police Keith Forde is using his experiences as a black immigrant in the police force to empower ethnic youth.
Top Cop
Barbadian-
first visible minority and immigrant Zalina Alvi
Caribbean People with Colin Rickards
Former G.G named as a UWI “Luminary”
By Colin Rickards
Canada’s former Governor General, Michaelle Jean, is to receive a “Luminary Award”
at the second Benefit Gala to be staged in Toronto by the University of the West
Indies (UWI) later this month. Jean, who is now UNESCO’s Special Envoy for Haiti
-
Jamaica-
Now Jean has also accepted, and will attend the Benefit Gala at the Four Seasons
Hotel, on Saturday, March 26, with her husband, philosopher, filmmaker and essayist
Jean-
The Benefit Gala is under the Patronage -
The Gala will also be the occasion for the presentation of three Chancellor’s Awards and five Vice Chancellor’s Awards.
The Chancellor’s Awards -
The Vice Chancellor’s Awards -
- Dr. Karl Massiah from Barbados, who entered the then University College of the West Indies in Jamaica in 1959, and was part of the first class of medical graduates in 1965. He had a distinguished career in medicine, was one of the Founders of the UWI Medical Alumni Association, and of its International arm, and is President of the Canadian Chapter.
- Judge Irving Andre, an historian, biographer and novelist, is from Dominica, He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1990 and became a judge in the Ontario Court of Justice in 2002.
- Kamala-
Jean Gopie, Jamaica- born educator and life long social activist, was among the Founders of the Black Business & Professional Association, and was the first female President of the Jamaican Canadian Association. - Dr. John Stewart, born in Canada and raised in Jamaica, attended the UWI Medical School, and did further training in Britain, then worked in East Africa before embarking on a noted medical career in Montreal.
- Keith Forde, a Barbadian, retired earlier this year as Deputy Chief of the Toronto Police Service, having worked in virtually every sphere of police activity during his 38 year career.
Along with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor, who are based at the Mona Campus in Jamaica, Pro Vice Chancellor Gordon Shirley, a former Jamaican Ambassador to the United States, and now Principal of the Mona Campus, and the Principals, or in one case Deputy Principal, of the three other Campuses will also act as Hosts for the Gala.
Professor Clement K. Sankat, a Guyanese, whose discipline is Mechanical Engineering,
is a Pro-
(For more information and tickets, visit www.uwitorontogala.com or call 416-
Also present at the Gala will be a legendary figure from UWI’s recent past: Sir Shridath
Ramphal, a Guyanese, who served three terms as Commonwealth Secretary-
The purpose of the Gala is to raise funds for the Regional Endowment Fund and last year enough was raised to award 17 scholarships and bursaries to graduate and undergraduate students from the four campuses.
In addition, $10,000 of the money raised at the Gala was devoted to the UWI/Haitian Initiative, under which the university is providing educational facilities for Haitian students affected by the earthquake.
World renowned Consultant Specialist Physician Dr. Herbert Ho Ping Kong, from Jamaica,
and Grenada-
The other woman, Canada’s former governor-
COMMITMENT
Gopie has been involved in the community for almost 40 years and attributes this
to her Quaker-
Gopie has worked as a teacher with the North York School Board, was appointed to
the federal Immigration and Refugee Board in 1998 and was appointed to the Ontario
Human Rights Commission in 2006. Her community activism covers many spheres – president
of the Jamaican Canadian Association (1979-
The recipients of the Vice-
resulting in 17 scholarships being awarded to students in need.
‘Gopie has been involved in the community for almost 40 years and attributes this
to her Quaker-
KAMALA-
Kamala-
UWI award
BY NEIL ARMSTRONG
TORONTO:
UWI staff participated in food, clothing and personal hygiene collection drives, bank accounts were opened on all the campuses and funds deposited were used to assist students in need.
The university also dispatched two of its engineers to Haiti, trained a National
Library of Haiti librarian at the Mona campus in Jamaica and offered 200 places at
its Mona, St. Augustine and Cave Hill campuses to displaced final-
"I draw great inspiration from the beautiful collaboration that has seen UWI assist the University of Haiti and other Haitian institutions following the earthquake in reconstructing tertiary education, in fundraising, in sending engineers, in raising international awareness and in facilitating the transfer of Haitian students to your campuses so they can return to Haiti fully equipped to contribute to reconstruction efforts," said Jean.
"Your commitment not only to Haiti's education system but also to supporting a long-
Since becoming UNESCO's special envoy last November, Jean has travelled the world
promoting Haiti's long-
"If I agreed to campaign tirelessly everywhere in support of Haiti, it is because I am deeply troubled by the incessant, almost cacophonous odes, to the resilience of the Haitian people," said Jean who, with her family, escaped the Duvalier regime and settled in Quebec after her father was arrested and tortured in 1965. "They make it seem as if the Haitian people were put forth on this earth only to recover from one crisis, one tragedy, one ordeal to the other. As I have said many times before, resilience is but the last resort before dying.
"It is therefore my conviction that more recognition must be given to the Haitian people and more broadly to the people of the Caribbean for their capacity to create, to think, to invent, to imagine, to do, to produce and to reach beyond themselves. It is only when we invest fully in Haitians' capacity, their spirit of innovation and their creativity, that we will see Haiti emerge strong from the embers of decades of badly planned and badly coordinated international aid."
Jean said the time has come for a paradigm shift in Haiti that will allow the country and the international community to move from the logic of aid and handouts to investment that generates partnerships, good governance and prosperity for all.
"Haiti can no longer suffer to be the laboratory of all experiments, of trial and error, of deficient strategies that have never produced anything viable, or given results of any durability," she added. "The future of Haiti can only come from sustained investments in the strengthening of human resources. Therefore, education is key to Haiti's recovery and rebuilding process and Haitians continue to find unity in their thirst for knowledge and training.
"Unfortunately, the vast majority remains afflicted by cruelly ineffective schools and by the sad reality that most of the country's communes lack institutions of learning and that hundreds of thousands of children lack schooling...The task of rebuilding the country's education system is enormous."
In addition to the two universities, 5,000 schools were destroyed by the earthquake.
Last February, Jean appeared before the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti (ICRH) to present UNESCO's strategy that is focused on education.
Canada's first Black Governor General Michaëlle Jean had more than one reason to
rush back to Toronto from a one-
She was proud to be the recipient of a Luminary award. But more than that, she wanted
to personally extend her gratitude to chancellor Sir George Alleyne, vice-
Barbadian-
first visible minority and immigrant
By RON FANFAIR
"Dominica is a very small island and the government said they did not have the funds," Andre said. "That was at a time when students from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and some of the other bigger regional islands received scholarships from their governments to study law. I had to come to Canada to study law. Ironically, it was easier to do that here than in the Caribbean."
Last year, Andre supported the inaugural UWI Toronto fundraising gala that provided 17 scholarships for the university's students and funding for 200 Haitians to complete their degrees at the Mona campus in Jamaica. The Haitians were enrolled at the University of Haiti that was destroyed in the January 2010 devastating earthquake.
"Because of what happened to me 30 years ago, it's important that we contribute financially
to assist those students in the Caribbean to achieve their educational dreams," said
Andre who was presented with a Vice-
Last year, Andre earned a doctorate becoming the only judge in the 289-
"When I look back at my time at the UWI, I see myself as a student pilgrim seeking benediction from a number of professors who, quite frankly, by the late 1970s, had made UWI one of the premier institutions of learning in the world," said Andre who has authored 13 books. "The UWI moulded me, it accounted for the growth of my intellectual development and it gave me the confidence which I needed when I came to Canada. "Without that confidence, I would not have been able to apply to go to law school here, do well, work while I was in school and even after I had completed my studies, to continue to try to achieve as much as I can because I felt I had the wherewithal and I was not inferior to any other person who I competed with, irrespective of race, colour or creed."
Unlike Andre, Jamaican Canadian Association's first female president Kamala-
She attended the University of Toronto, achieving a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters
in Education and taught in elementary and junior high schools during a sterling 31-
"I am honoured to have been chosen for this award," said Forde. "The university's reputation of being an institution of academic excellence and its history of producing some of the world's most respected thinkers, leaders, accomplished business people, educators, scientists and politicians among many others makes this recognition of my work that much more meaningful.
"This gala is a demonstration of how UWI is tapping into the increasing power and
influence of Diaspora communities as another platform to strengthen and sustain Caribbean
nation-
Jean, who is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) special envoy for Haiti flew in from Helsinki hours before the gala to accept the award.
"I am deeply moved by your gesture because it is inextricably linked to a very noble
cause, extending opportunities to those who lack the means of fulfilling their dreams
of attending a world-
"You remind us that societies advance when they nurture and cultivate the hearts and minds of their people to learning, creativity and innovation. From the time I was growing up in the Caribbean, I was deeply convinced that education had the power to unlock the rich potential inherent in every person, every community and every nation. Education is the key to freedom. I would not be the woman standing in front of you tonight if it were not for the value of education inculcated in me by my parents.
"That's why I believe that access to education places upon each one of us a special
responsibility to use knowledge as a medium to draw our ideas from the realm of theoretical
concept into the practical reality of concrete and meaningful actions that can shape
and transform the lives of others." Ryerson University, which collaborated with UWI
three years ago to offer a distance learning program to nursing students in the Caribbean
and Gap Adventures founded by Trinidad-
The UWI was established in 1948 as the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) in a special relationship with the University of London. The university has provided approximately 4,600 scholarships since it opened 63 years ago with 23 male and 10 female students who began their academic journey in wooden huts in Jamaica that once housed war refugees from Gibraltar and Malta.
The cost of tuition for a full-
"We are here for an important cause," said Vice-
"Equally important to our mission is an absolute commitment to the conduct of research and the gathering of knowledge to help drive social and economic development of our Caribbean people." Nearly 2,000 students apply annually for UWI scholarships and less than 100 are granted academic funding each year.
Personal and financial obstacles in the pursuit of higher education have never prevented Justice Dr. Irving Andre from achieving academic and professional excellence.
Three decades ago, the Dominican government turned down his request for a scholarship
to pursue law at the University of the West Indies. The Curacao-
UWI honours luminaries at fundraising gala
By RON FANFAIR
Sir George Alleyne, Dr. Nigel Harris, Michaëlle Jean and Ray Chang
How educational philanthropists Raymond Chang and Nigel Harris are helping today's youth write tomorrow's success stories.
Interview with Olympic champion Donovan Bailey and billionaire businessman Michael
Lee-
Renowned environmentalist David Suzuki at the second annual University of the West Indies Benefit Gala.
Interviews from The 2011 UWI Benefit Gala
