School

American director Lee Hirsch and producer Cynthia Lowen, whose timely and riveting — and heart breaking — documentary The Bully Project follows the lives of five bullied children and their families, hopes the film will not only be a teaching tool at schools across North America, but that it starts a whole anti-bullying movement, also called The Bully Project. Weinstein Company has now picked up the film for distribution and it is expected to hit theatres later this year.

Hirsch and Lowen sat down with Samaritanmag’s Jordan Adler at Toronto’s Victoria College, the media centre for the recent Hot Docs Canadian international documentary festival, where The Bully Project screened. Hirsh, it turns out, was bullied as a kid, and Lowen, a bystander.

Neil Young hasn't attended the Juno Awards in 29 years, but the Canadian music legend will be on hand to accept the 2011 Allan Waters Humanitarian Award at the 40th anniversary show, March 27, at Toronto's Air Canada Centre.

Young, co-founder of Farm Aid and the Bridge School Benefit Concert, is receiving the esteemed award as "an outstanding Canadian artist whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada," according to the criteria from The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), the organization behind the Junos.

Named after the founder of media conglomerate CHUM Ltd., past recipients of the Allan Waters Humanitarian include Bryan Adams (2010), Sarah McLachlan (2009), Paul Brandt (2008), Tom Jackson (2007) and Bruce Cockburn (2006).

Sylvia Allen has taken her expertise in sponsorship and public relations as head of New Jersey’s Allen Consulting to spearhead Sylvia’s Children Inc., a non-profit created to help the children of Masaka, Uganda, using a unique twist on education. When she reaches her ultimate goal, she will then apply the same model to other places.

Allen, like many, believes that education is the core of creating a self-sustaining community that can rise above poverty and, through her organization, she has implemented enterprising initiatives at the Mbiriizi Advanced Primary and Day Care School.

Sylvia’s Children has built a new boys dorm; a well for clean water; three double classrooms; a new library; a playground; a building for corn milling; and supplied beds, blankets, stoves, cooking pots, desks, shoes, socks, books, and other items. It has also hired a school nurse and purchased eight acres of land adjacent to the school.

“We now have more teachers, improved cooking conditions, and seven of those acres planted with corn,” Sylvia says. “We have enough room on that land to start a chicken farm and we’re going to start five businesses so that maximum by 2012 they won’t need me. I’m making it so they’re totally self-reliant.”

The 2^nd annual Canada’s Top Teen Philanthropist search, created by financial company Mackenzie Investments, has awarded Sophia Gran-Ruaz with a $5,000 donation to the charity of her choice and $1000 for her post-secondary education. The 17-year-old student at John Cabot Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, founded Snug As A Bug, Kids Helping Kids six years ago to create care packages for children entering shelters.

“That’s probably the most difficult time for them,” Gran-Ruaz tells Samaritanmag. “Most of them come just with the clothes on their backs because they are fleeing with their mothers because of abusive relationships and things like that. The care packages are all gender and age appropriate and are filled with books, stuff animals, playing cards, puzzles, magazines.”

The Mississauga, Ontario resident created Snug As A Bug after writing a speech about homelessness for school. Accompanied by her father, she went downtown to speak first-hand with people living on the street. “It was an amazing experience, especially being so young. You certainly have stereotypes of what a homeless person is so hearing their stories really broke that stereotype for me,” she says.

Too young to volunteer at most other charities, the enterprising 11-year-old gathered 500 care packages for babies to age 16 and sent them to Interim Place North and South. The second year approximately 1300 care packages were sent to Interim Place North and South, and The Salvation Army Honeychurch Family Resource Centre. The third year over 2300 care packages were created and sent to the previous two shelters, plus VCWRS Women’s Resource Center. And so on, with more packages and more recipients added each year.  To date, Snug A Bug has distributed more than 10,000 packages.