Changemakers Without Borders

Teamwork is not something to be taken for granted with children, but they can have an abundance of good vibes, especially when working together towards a positive, interesting goal such as an animation project.  The founders of Sheepdog Animation, a studio home-grown in Waterloo, Ontario spill light on what kind of person you need to be to work as an aspiring animator,  and how we can all feel better when we just pick up a pen and draw. Follow Changemakers on instagram @maycooperproductions, and leave a review if you enjoyed it! Also, you can reach me at [email protected]

What was it like to live in the year of 1918, in the tail ends of World War I, while a pandemic was beginning to spread all over North America, England, and other European countries? How bad was the flu, and was anyone prepared for it? Professor Kandace Bogaert with her doctorate from McMasters and conducting post-doc research at Wilfred Laurier brings her expertise on the 1918 flu in this fascinating new episode. Follow Changemakers on instagram @maycooperproductions, and leave a review if you enjoyed it! Also, you can reach me at [email protected] 

What was in the old piece of film Paul Kriz and Alice Sinkner find in the old projector they bought from Nova Scotia? The co-founders of the award-winning studio called Sheepdog Animation join Changemakers to talk about classical vs. digital animation, teamwork between children and youth in animation, and having to close their art and film museum and transition to online teaching. 

From being a marine electrician at the Canadian Navy to becoming an energy healer, Ashley LeBlanc certainly has a unique story to tell--how she was afflicted with a rare illness, her journey in finding out what it is, and how it caused her to choose a different path in her life--one that not only helped her recover, but also allowed her to help clients in ways she never thought possible. You can find Ashley at www.discoverhealing.com. You can also check out the interview on video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzrAN59nqT4&t=3s 

Who was your role model? Is it important for men to have platonic friendships? Spend "brotherly" time with each other, and share their struggles? What kind of issues are men facing? How can women support men more? Those, and more, are questions asked of Nick Solaczec, the Executive Officer of the Samurai Brotherhood, a positive, empowered space for men, to have men’s backs.

Executive Officer Nick Solaczec joins Changemakers to talk about the Samurai Brotherhood, a community for conscious men that started out by its founder Phil Teeertha Mistlberger 24 years ago with an aim to support and guide men in the modern era. The Samurai Brotherhood has over 400 members across North America, and some even in Australia. Groups of men meet up in a safe space to share in their grief, struggles and challenges, without the use of alcohol, drugs, or video games, to help each other become the best version of people they can be.

Formerly titled "Ep 13 - A Bitter Taste of the Cold War - Alexander Solzhenitsyn". A social critic in a regime that actively persecuted dissenters, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (also in picture) grappled with Death on occasions almost too numerous to count, a man who, like many others, was reduced to mere scum by the Communist Regime of the USSR, but who kept a spirit of a fighter, and a writer while imprisoned. Later, he received a Nobel Prize for several volumes chronicling the 200 or more interviews he had with his fellow prisoners as well as his own experiences, what he called "The Gulag Archipelago", the most profound text on why communism should never be put to action. 

In the final episode of the Fight for Women’s Rights in Canada I ask Tarah Brookfield, a professor from Wilfred Laurier University from the Faculty of History and Youth and Children Studies, about gender quotas and diversity in workplaces, professorship applications, Indigenous women’s rights in Canada, as well as the Grand River First Nations’ system. I also ask her about how transgenderism may be affecting women’s rights, and what may be the best type of relationship for children's prosperity and stability.

Onwards! The fight for women's rights continues, with its interesting turns in the Canadian political arena of the 1900s. In this 4-part series, Professor Tarah Brookfield from Wilfred Laurier University unravels her research and vast knowledge of the subject in Part 3 with Changemakers. The history of the suffragist movement in Canada for women is a subject not to be forgotten or overlooked. We got this far for getting the vote, equality, and freedom. Men and women should not let their guard down, and keep fighting for our life-freedoms. 

Professor Tarah Brookfield joins us from the University of Wilfred Laurier in Waterloo, Ontario, representing both the faculty of Youth and Children as well as the faculty of History, and shares her knowledge on the history of the women's rights movement in Canada. Women did not only fight the government to get the vote. There were also disagreements between the women themselves on if they should even get the vote in the first place. That, and much more interesting politics is in this Women's Rights series with Professor Brookfield.