Youth art project brings citation for Nunavut resident
26 April 2009
IQALUIT, Nunavut, Canada, 26 April - Beth McKenty moved to sparsely populated northeast Canada - to Iqaluit on Baffin Island - in 1999 to fulfill a pledge, made 45 years earlier, to devote part of her life to reducing youth suicide.
Within two weeks of arriving she had begun a project to help children build self-esteem by exploring their creativity. The Arctic Youth Art Initiative has since grown to involve hundreds of children.
Ms. McKenty's efforts were acknowledged this month when she was one of 75 individuals from across Canada named as recipients of the Caring Canadian Awards for 2009. Created in 1996 by the Canadian Governor General, the award is presented to individuals and groups whose unpaid, voluntary contributions over a number of years provide extraordinary help or care to people in their community.
It has been a long and often surprising road for Ms. McKenty from her birthplace of Snowflake, Manitoba, to Iqaluit, population 7,200 and the capital of the Nunavut territory. In addition to several decades in Wisconsin, where she worked as a freelance journalist and raised a family, she has lived in Japan, China, and Russia, and she has taught at the Navajo College at Tsaile, Arizona, in the United States.
"I started out on a farm in Manitoba, one of seven children," she said. "My father was from pioneer stock and a veteran who served at Vimy Ridge. My mother, a nurse, was an Icelandic immigrant. We grew up in a home with an openness to the whole world.
"In 1954, my younger brother took his own life. One way I dealt with the anguish was to make a promise to myself that some day, somehow, I would do something to help reduce youth suicide."
To read the rest of the article, which was first published by the Canadian Baha'i News Service, and see photographs, go to: http://news.bahai.org/story/711
For the BWNS home page, go to: http://news.bahai.org
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Copyright 2009 by the Baha'i World News Service. All stories and photographs produced by the Baha'i World News Service may be freely reprinted, re-emailed, re-posted to the World Wide Web and otherwise reproduced by any individual or organization as long as they are attributed to the Baha'i World News Service. For more information, visit http://news.bahai.org.
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Within two weeks of arriving she had begun a project to help children build self-esteem by exploring their creativity. The Arctic Youth Art Initiative has since grown to involve hundreds of children.
Ms. McKenty's efforts were acknowledged this month when she was one of 75 individuals from across Canada named as recipients of the Caring Canadian Awards for 2009. Created in 1996 by the Canadian Governor General, the award is presented to individuals and groups whose unpaid, voluntary contributions over a number of years provide extraordinary help or care to people in their community.
It has been a long and often surprising road for Ms. McKenty from her birthplace of Snowflake, Manitoba, to Iqaluit, population 7,200 and the capital of the Nunavut territory. In addition to several decades in Wisconsin, where she worked as a freelance journalist and raised a family, she has lived in Japan, China, and Russia, and she has taught at the Navajo College at Tsaile, Arizona, in the United States.
"I started out on a farm in Manitoba, one of seven children," she said. "My father was from pioneer stock and a veteran who served at Vimy Ridge. My mother, a nurse, was an Icelandic immigrant. We grew up in a home with an openness to the whole world.
"In 1954, my younger brother took his own life. One way I dealt with the anguish was to make a promise to myself that some day, somehow, I would do something to help reduce youth suicide."
To read the rest of the article, which was first published by the Canadian Baha'i News Service, and see photographs, go to: http://news.bahai.org/story/711
For the BWNS home page, go to: http://news.bahai.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2009 by the Baha'i World News Service. All stories and photographs produced by the Baha'i World News Service may be freely reprinted, re-emailed, re-posted to the World Wide Web and otherwise reproduced by any individual or organization as long as they are attributed to the Baha'i World News Service. For more information, visit http://news.bahai.org.
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