Arcade Fire portraits, June 8, 2010 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
Eric Kayne for The Globe and Mail
Canadians Changing the World
The crusaders
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
-
Arcade Fire: Stars shine light on Haiti
Arcade Fire portraits, June 8, 2010 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.— Eric Kayne for The Globe and Mail
Arcade Fire sings a lament for Haiti's murderous past rule, but the song is also an anthem of hope that the country some day finds renewal. Régine Chassagne, who sings the tune and founded the internationally renowned Canadian band with her husband, Win Butler, is determined that it will.
Nearly a year ago, home in Montreal, Ms. Chassagne, 34, was knocked breathless by news of the earthquake that flattened the capital of the homeland her family fled four decades ago: “It wasn't exactly despair, it was … emergency. It was more like your whole body is shaking with emergency,” she said. “It's a rare feeling. … You're ready to walk out in your PJs and start doing what you need to do.”
On the world tour supporting its new chart-topping and Grammy-nominated album The Suburbs, Arcade Fire raised – and then matched – $1-million in donations for Partners in Health, an NGO operating in Haiti that it supported even before the quake. Proceeds from licensing its song Wake Up to the 2010 Super Bowl also went to PiH.
Ms. Chassagne took matters a step further: She helped found Kanpe, a non-profit offering health, educational, farming and other assistance for rural Haitians to achieve a sustainable living. In 2011, Kanpe (Creole for “stand up”) aims to start with 150 families in Thomonde in Haiti's central plateau.
“I know there is a way to make things happen for the best in Haiti. They're not easy – it always takes longer than the ‘Band Aid' solutions,” she said, referring to We Are the World-style rock-star charity projects. “They're less glamourous, but … somebody needs to care for the long term.”
The band's song Haiti, released six years ago, seems almost to foresee the disaster. But it actually describes the murderous Duvalier regimes that drove Ms. Chassagne's family away before she was born. She first visited only in 2008, because her mother was so traumatized by tontons macoutes thugs that “going back wasn't really an option” before her mother's death several years ago.
Ms. Chassagne and Mr. Butler returned to Haiti last year and denounced wealthy countries' slowness at fulfilling their pledges. Their song has renewed poignancy as cholera brings a new daily death toll. The band is taking the winter off, so Kanpe will be Ms. Chassagne's main focus in early 2011: “It's going to be a big year.”
– Les Perreaux
Hear Arcade Fire's Aracade Fire's Régine Chassange talk about why she hasn't set goals yet for 2011:
Video of Arcade Fire on Haiti:
For more on Arcade Fire:
-
Jeff Skoll, 45
Entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist
Philanthropy 2.0: Mr. Skoll became the first employee and president of eBay, which grew into a global online-auction juggernaut and turned him into a young billionaire. He soon cashed out, eventually becoming a philanthropist 2.0 – creating foundations that fund social-justice-minded entrepreneurs and a film production company, Participant Media, that “compels social change,” with movies like An Inconvenient Truth and Food Inc.
Virtue ventures: As eBay prepared to go public, Mr. Skoll, born in Montreal and schooled at Stanford, started a charitable foundation with non-public stock. Within months of its IPO, the foundation had $35-million. Mr. Skoll was just getting started. He presides over a charitable empire of richly endowed ventures such as the Skoll Global Threats Fund, which has injected $750,000 into stopping nuclear proliferation and $1-million into an effort to “elevate the voices of moderation” on the Israel-Palestinian question in the U.S.
His 2011 moment: Participant Media has two films coming out that touch on issues central to contemporary life: Contagion, out in October, is a thriller based on the all-too-familiar prospect of being unprepared for a deadly global pandemic; The Help, due in August, is an intimate story about overcoming racial segregation. From March 30 to April 1, he will also hold the Skoll World Forum at Oxford University, where “social entrepreneurs” gather to compare notes.
– Iain Marlow
Jeff Skoll, co-founder and first President of EBay, speaks with the Globe and Mail about his philanthropic activities after receiving the Association of Fundraising Professionals Award in Toronto— J.P. Moczulski/The Globe and Mail
For more on Jeff Skoll:
Scott Gilmore makes peace missions more effective
Craig and Marc Kielburger believe changing the world is possible
-
Rahul Singh, 40
Paramedic, founder of GlobalMedic
Travel light: GlobalMedic has sent teams to such crises as the earthquake and cholera outbreak in Haiti and floods in Pakistan. Unlike traditional aid agencies, it has few overhead costs, relies on trained volunteers and does little fundraising. Equipment is kept ready for rapid response andappeals for donations are made only as needed.
Streamlining: One of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 this year and included in Time's 100 most influential people, Mr. Singh was a Toronto paramedic when his marriage broke up and he decided to take a trip around the world. He ended up in Nepal working for an aid group that ran out of money for relief as its director enjoyed a five-star hotel. The goal with GlobalMedic was to provide relief free of overhead.
His 2011 moment: On cholera in Haiti, GlobalMedic is focusing on prevention not treatment: Mr. Singh is bringing clean water to homes with a $70 bucket-filtration system developed in Richmond Hill, Ont. His goal is to reach 10,000 homes.
– Carly Weeks
Rahul Singh is a Toronto paramedic who works on the charitable organization, Global Medic. Global Medic takes numerous teams world wide to disaster zones to provide support.
Mr. Singh is bringing clean water to homes with a $70 bucket-filtration system developed in Richmond Hill, Ont. His goal is to reach 10,000 homes
For more on Rahul Singh:
-
Joanna Kerr, 43
Chief executive of ActionAid
Transformer: Ms. Kerr has been hired to transform a 38-year-old agency founded as a British charity into a network of autonomous organizations in the developing world, based in communities and elected at general assemblies by grassroots representatives who include the poorest and most marginalized. This, within one of the world's biggest anti-poverty organizations, with 2,700 employees in 47 countries. “It will test all my cross-cultural diplomatic skills,” she says.
The handover: Born in Georgetown, Ont., she was raised in Toronto and Tanzania, and has a degree in African studies from the University of Toronto and one in gender and development from the University of Sussex in Britain.
She spent 19 years working in international development and women's rights before being hired six months ago to spearhead ActionAid's new structure, an experiment being watched closely by such major groups as Oxfam and Save the Children.
To signal the shift, ActionAid had already moved its headquarters to Johannesburg, but now wants to erase any suspicion that it's still about wealthy donors giving to the poor. Instead the aim is to empower impoverished people to make their own decisions and defend their rights.
Her 2011 moment: In July, she must try to win support at ActionAid's annual general assembly in Dar es Salaam for her six-year strategy to decentralize the organization and root it in the developing countries of the south.
– Geoffrey York
Joanna Kerr, incoming chief executive ActionAid International
She spent 19 years working in international development and women's rights before being hired six months ago to spearhead ActionAid's new structure, an experiment being watched closely by such major groups as Oxfam and Save the Children
For more on Joanna Kerr:
-
Charles Tator, 74
Neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, founder of ThinkFirst Canada
Anti-bully: In 2009, Dr. Tator publicly chastised Don Cherry for endangering athletes by promoting rock-'em-sock-'em hockey. The bombastic CBC commentator fired back, but the veteran neurosurgeon stood his ground – as he has for decades while he preaches his often-unpopular message: Violence has no place in hockey.
Ounce of prevention: Dr. Tator's research and advocacy have resulted in new legislation and guidelines to prevent spinal-cord injury in hockey. In 1992, he founded ThinkFirst Canada, an organization to educate the public about head and spinal injuries. He was named to the Order of Canada in 2000, when he began focusing his efforts on another hidden danger, concussions. Dr. Tator is internationally recognized for revealing the serious, lasting impact of this head injury, for which no treatment is known.
His 2011 moment: Dr. Tator and Toronto Western colleagues are gathering the brains of deceased elite and professional athletes for a new study that would add to a growing international body of research that is shedding light on the long-term effects of concussions. The team has received their first donated brain, from a former CFL player, and their findings should be available this year.
– Hayley Mick
Dr. Carles Tator, a Neurosurgeon who researches treatments for patients with spinal cord injuries who got a significant amount of funding from the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Here he discusses spinal injuries with a model of a human spine with some research fellows in the reserach laboratory of the Krembil Neuroscience Centre located in Toronto Western Hospital
For more on Dr. Charles Tator:
Putting a face on hockey concussions
Hockey parents, teams hard-headed about concussions
-
Heather Reisman, 62
CEO and founder, Indigo Books and Music
The spark: It was a late summer night when Ms. Reisman fired off an e-mail to some of the world's most powerful women, prompting a global advocacy campaign. The issue? Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother who was sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for alleged adultery and the murder of her husband. Ms. Reisman's e-mail sparked an online petition that has been signed by close to half a million people, including actress Gwyneth Paltrow, author Salman Rushdie and Laureen Harper, the wife of the Prime Minister.
Climber: Originally from Montreal, Ms. Reisman is a career businesswoman and entrepreneur. In 1979, she founded Paradigm Consulting, before taking over as president of Cott Corporation, the soft-drink and beverage company. In 1996, she founded Indigo Books and Music, which quickly grew into the country's largest retail book chain.
Her 2011 moment: Priority No. 1 is Ms. Ashtiani's release, but Ms. Reisman says her next target is ending the threat of stoning altogether.
– Greg McArthur
Laureen Harper (R), wife of Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, listens to businesswoman Heather Reisman during a meeting discussing the state of womenês rights in Iran at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa November 23, 2010.— Chris Wattie/Reuters
For more on Heather Reisman:
Canadian advocates hail ‘astounding’ release of Iranian woman
Laureen Harper plays new kind of hostess – fighting for Iranian women
Heather Reisman spearheads 11th-hour bid to save Iranian woman from stoning
-
Jameel Jaffer, 39
Deputy legal director, American Civil Liberties Union
Gadfly: Mr. Jaffer uses U.S. courts to pry open state secrets. The senior ACLU lawyer and his team have forced the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to reveal precisely how it has fought the war on terrorism – facts that forced Washington to curb CIA practices.
Drawn to justice: Born to Ismaili Muslim parents who immigrated from Tanzania, Mr. Jaffer studied at Upper Canada College and Harvard Law School. He moved to New York in 2001 with aspirations of becoming a corporate lawyer. Before long, he found himself working pro bono for Muslim immigrants rounded up in security sweeps.
His 2011 moment: Important ACLU-driven rulings are due early in the new year – on the warrantless-wiretapping surveillance program and the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing water-boarding interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.
– Colin Freeze
Jameel Jaffer, lawyer with the ACLU, working in downtown Manhattan.— Michael Falco for The Globe and Mail
For more on Jameel Jaffer:
Al-Awlaki case tests limits of presidential authority
