Faces of Edmonton

Telling Edmonton's stories one photo and one conversation at a time.

[facesofedmonton]

"I think the garden is a pretty cool aspect of what we do. I think it’s metaphorical. People come in and they start from the very beginning as little seeds and then they grow into something big and beautiful and we all celebrate that by harvesting when the right time comes. So not only does it give people something to do, but it’s also a great food source. So it teaches people to become independent. There’s a lot of community members that have come in and they’re like, 'Oh, this garden is so great, I’m going to start my own garden in my own place.’ It’s pretty cool to see that something so small can create such a big impact." 

[facesofedmonton]

“It's a place where you can work side by side and bond with the community members. Sometimes they’ve got a lot in their lives that’s against them and they're not open to opening up. A garden like this becomes a common ground where you can work along side them and then eventually they start talking. I love using metaphors: you gotta trim the suckers off of a tomato plant to make it flourish more because the suckers steal nutrients from the plant producing the better stuff at the top. And sometimes you need to take the suckers out of your life, you gotta remove them. I thought of that one day when I was at my mother’s pruning a bunch of apple trees, and God started talking to me about that, about trimming the trees and how you gotta take the bad branches that don’t produce anything so that the ones the do produce can produce bigger, better, and larger fruit."

[facesofedmonton]

"I’ll show you guys a trick that I learned at Elk Island National Park. And this is a real good one because there’s some around here. If you’ve got any kind of bug bite, you chew on this lightly and then rub it on the bite and it’s gone almost immediately."

[facesofedmonton]

"The garden ... I remember working here as a summer student out here weeding and tilling with the clients and now just seeing that continue over the years and that the clients still have the same passion for it and understand what it means … This is not just a garden to them. It’s a place where people come together as a community. It’s a place where people learn new skills, it gives people confidence. And on top of that, thinking about sustainable foods, it is a source of food … it’s a pivotal piece here at Mosaic especially during the summer."

#yeg#facesofyeg #edmonton #photooftheday #picoftheday #portrait #alberta#humansof

[facesofedmonton]

"I love music. I like to sing ... I knew I wasn't going to be a performer. So then I thought, "What am I going to do with music. I'm going to be a music teacher." So I started off as a music teacher ... and it means to make a difference, to influence the future ... I'm on the tail end now. It's been a good run. Boys and girls, tell Shayne what's rule number 1."

"Never ask a lady her age," the grade three class says in unison. 

She laughs and says, "Things have been really good. I don't have anything left on my teaching bucket list that I think I have to do ... I'm going to do some travelling with our family. I think we'd all like to go to Europe."

[facesofedmonton]

"I’m dressed up for a job interview actually. I haven’t had it. It’s at 2:45. It’s for a senior manager position at my branch ... I’m a bit nervous so that’s why I came out for a walk and a sit down before ... You know it’s funny you asked to take my picture—I modelled for Western Canada Fashion Week before, so I’ve been on the runway. As a forty year old that’s quite the accomplishment. I got discovered in an elevator. I got on the elevator and this woman was talking with a friend about fashion week and fashion in general, and she turns to me and makes this motion and says, ‘This works.’ So I said, ‘You know, I’ve done some stills before for a nutritional supplement.’ She said, ‘You might be interested in Fashion Week.’ I gave her my card, she sends me an email, says, ‘Here’s the link for models,’ and it was all legit. So I filled it out and had to audition with a bunch of twenty year olds who were all there with their parents, I was with my wife of eighteen years. And a couple of designers picked me.”

[facesofedmonton]

"I was born with albinism and growing up I faced a lot of adversity. Part of my albinism is that my vision is twenty-two hundred, which basically means that everything is zoomed out. If you’ve ever turned a lens or a pair of binoculars over, that zoomed-out look, that’s kind of how I see the world. Everything is in perspective, it’s clear, I see colours and shapes and everything, it just looks far away. I’ve seen like that since birth.”

“At five years old, I met with a disability counsellor who told me all the things that I wouldn’t be able to do in life. They told me I wouldn’t be able to play sports, that I wouldn’t be able to drive, that my career choice would be selective and education would be tough for me. So I came out of that meeting with drive and determination to prove that individual wrong, and prove that I could do anything that a normal person could do. It wasn’t easy. I grew up with a lot of battles and people putting limitations on me that I didn’t think existed.”

“Luckily I had great parents who supported me wholeheartedly. They always let me live out my dreams and do the things I wanted to do. I dirt bike, downhill ski, I played basketball in junior high and high school, and I played football on the varsity team.”

“Beyond a strong friend base, one of the most important resources I had growing up was the Canadian Institute for the Blind (CNIB). They were a really strong support system for me because with so much negativity living as someone with low vision and with so many naysayers, having my parents, friends and the CNIB supporting me in every decision I made really made a difference and I’ll always be so grateful for that ... I wanted to give back to the CNIB so I started volunteering with them so I could help kids and give them similar opportunities. Just this summer I was able to organize a basketball camp for children with low vision ... To me, the miracle of the camp was seeing these kids transform from having no confidence, to their state when they left where they were inspired to go out and try new things and realize their potential, because they didn’t have any basketball skills when they came in and they left with the ability to dribble the ball and make some baskets, all those basketball skills, and they lit up ... To see them building towards something they didn’t even think was possible was a great experience."

[facesofedmonton]

“I was assaulted by someone I had known for fifteen years. Eighty percent of survivors have experienced acquaintance sexual assault, so someone they know or someone they care about. So for me, it felt important to speak out, to give a face to a lot of peoples’ experiences and then it empowers people to start talking … it makes me feel that talking about it is worth it.”

“When I initially disclosed to a social group I was close with for fifteen years, which included my brother, none of them believed me, and they all stopped speaking to me and they still hang out with the person who assaulted me. That was incredibly painful and incredibly difficult because not only was I going though this, but I was pretty much completely alone. When I saw the I Believe You Campaign, it inspired me to talk about it. I decided I wasn’t going to hang on to this because it was toxic to me to keep holding this inside of me — not speaking about it and keep shoving it down is not healthy. So I decided to post about my experience on Facebook before I went to bed and when I woke up, I was amazed at the feedback I was receiving from people, things like, ‘That’s so brave of you, thank you for sharing your story, we support you, we love you’. It was huge and I think then I started feeling more comfortable and then speaking  about it in a more public way started to feel more comfortable. It is empowering to talk about it because it takes away that shame and the secrecy that is so toxic to survivors.”

“I work on behalf of the Sexual Assault Centre in Edmonton and I’ve been doing a lot of media stuff around the I Believe You campaign, which is connected to building a culture of belief and support for survivors of sexual violence ... With the campaign, we’ve seen a fifty-three percent increase of people accessing the Sexual Assault Centre’s services across the province, that’s the provincial average. In Sherwood Park, it’s been a ninety percent increase of people coming into the centre looking for support, so it creates this environment where people begin to feel okay talking about this with a counsellor and getting some help … The goal is to change the culture so it’s knee-jerk for people to say ‘I believe you’ when someone discloses to you. And to ultimately prevent sexual assault from happening.”

[facesofedmonton]

“For me it was just the pervasive nature of family violence. I had seen it, obviously, through my career … My background is thirty-odd years in provincial government, primarily in the area of child protection … When I became involved in the Today Centre, it really brought out the need for coordinated response. You know this issue hasn’t gone away, it’s not going away, and it’s not up to just one agency … Family violence hits a lot of people and we need to have people there that can provide a timely response.”

“The Today Family Violence Help Centre, which is an organization designed to support individual affected by family violence, primarily people fleeing abusive relationships, they do a lot of teaching, programs to agencies or service organizations but as well provides direct service to victims of family violence. I’ve been with the Today Centre for a couple years on their board … My connection to Today Family Violence isn’t particularly dramatic, I’m not a victim or a perpetrator of family violence, but this is something that resonated with me when I retired and started looking at ways of helping out.

[facesofedmonton]

“I work for The Family Centre, and I’m a youth liaison in south west Edmonton ... I was born in India and being in India you are exposed to poverty. I was in India for eight years and then moved to Australia and basically grew up in Australia. And my father is a single father and he raised us, so food security was definitely an issue for our family, but my dad did a really good job of hiding that.”

“I sort of fell into this field of human services so I lucked out because I really enjoy it and it feels natural to me. I’m happy to be doing the ground work and helping directly, you know. I like seeing the change. Just to have one kid say, ‘I don’t know where I’d be without your help,’ it really means a lot and reminds you that this is why I do what I do ... When you see the confidence of a child grow, it’s a huge thing. I’ve built relationships with kids so it’s comfortable. I really enjoy that. When kids realize the potential they have, it’s a huge moment. Sometimes they just need someone to flip a switch in their head to make them think ‘Maybe I can do this.’”

“Finding employment is a big challenge for youth I see, also food security, transportation and health. We need more shelters. There’s only one youth shelter in Edmonton and it’s full every night. And what happens when there’s overflow — where do those youth go?”

[facesofedmonton]

“When I was six, my father stabbed my mother to death in front of me in the middle of the night and so, he went to prison and she died. And I was stuck in foster care for the rest of my youth ... a lot of people think, ‘Maybe it was so horrifying that you blocked it out.’ I’m glad that I didn’t block it out. There are already enough holes in my life that I kind of tried to fill all the time. I like knowing that I was there and that I can count on my memories.”

“I think every day I feel something's missing. No matter what, I don't think that I’ll ever feel whole in that way. I feel whole as a person and I have a really whole full life. But I think there's always ... I always know that I can’t call my mom. You know, she didn’t come to my wedding. I’m pregnant and she can’t come to see that. There's always something missing. So you have to make the most of it and you have to fill it with other things. And I think that's what makes me feel so passionate about speaking and sharing my story and helping other people up. My favourite thing in the world is helping other people up and I think that makes me feel purposeful.”

I’m a life coach. I’m a speaker. I just wrote my first book. I’m really excited ... It’s my memoir telling the whole story. It begins when my mom dies and goes up to about twenty-five years old ... before my journey of healing fully and stepping into being a speaker and sharing my story. I think a lot of victims of violence don’t feel as though they have anything to contribute. To me that’s so false because I think people who rise up and keep getting up ... you know, every human being falls down but I think it takes a strong person to get back up and get back up. And I always say that my get back up muscle is the most defined muscle in my body. I know that I will always get up. I can’t start worrying about falling down because I know that is inevitable. But getting up is a choice and that’s something I will always choose.”

[facesofedmonton]

“I wrecked July 25, 1998. I was paralyzed from my neck down for three and a half months before I could even get a twitch ... When I wrecked, I got hit in the head with a duck. I was riding my Harley Davidson. I looked down and I was doing 100 k. Then when I looked up, all I could do was hold on tight because a duck blew out of the reeds, missed my wind screen and bounced off my melon. So that was like Saturday night at the cowboy bar — just an explosion of lights and pain and down in the ditch I went. There I was laying on my face with my arms crossed underneath me and paralyzed from my neck down. I had to hang out there for forty minutes until I was found ... From there, it’s been onward and upward. I’ve had lots of support from family and friends, no one would let me give up ... One door closes, another one opens, that’s all.”

“My daughters were eleven and fourteen. With my WalkAide, I was able to walk my youngest daughter down the aisle. That was in 2011 I think.”

“This WalkAide gave me my life back. I work with Spinal Cord Injury Alberta and I also do consulting in the oil field ... with Spinal Cord Injury Alberta, I can walk people through the process of catastrophic injuries. To be able to show people that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and that there’s work for them. It’s easy for them to relate to me because I know what it’s like to feel trapped and not have feeling from my neck down. Spinal Cord Injury Alberta is funded by the United Way. They’ve done so much for me and my family.”

[facesofedmonton]

“Playing some basketball after work, I’ve played since I was a kid back home, in the Philippines … If I go back home, everybody is playing basketball in the streets, everywhere you can see boxing, basketball. I play with my community here. We’re all Filipino playing together so we can meet other Filipinos living here in Edmonton. We have a little community here and you can make friends even if you’re out of your country. It makes me feel good.”

“It was a real challenge for me when I first moved here because it’s really cold compared to back home. Back home is like 36 degrees fahrenheit. When I first felt -38, I was shocked. For one or two weeks I stayed at home without going outside. I’ve been living here now for five years. I’ve been liking it more now. Everyone has a hard time when moving here for the first time.”

[facesofedmonton]

“This is my second fiddle and I’ve had her for, let’s say, twelve years. My husband helped me get her when we were first dating, and she’s been with me ever since ... I realized it was helping me heal when I was taking the course at The Family Centre, talking about building new neural pathways and meditation. It feels like, when I play my instrument, that I’m meditating. And that’s how I figured out that it was healing me and helping me.”

“I was looking for help and I was calling around and got in touch with The Family Centre, and they told me about a program called Healthy Relationships. I felt like I needed to take it. I thought, ‘I came from this household that I didn’t even know was so toxic and abusive. I can't carry that for my family legacy and my children.’ So I decided to take that course. It took me eight months to complete. Every Tuesday night. That was how I started to shine the light on how to get out of the dark hole I was living in.”

“The first four years of being a mom was torturing me alive. It was because it was triggering me twenty-four seven. I was always feeling and seeing the things that happened to me while I was taking care of my kid. It was horrible. But now it’s way different. I actually understand what the love feels like. And this pregnancy is way different because I’m not a terrified person. If you can imagine, for twenty-nine years I lived afraid of everything. And this time I’m chill about it and excited because I’m not bombarded by that other stuff.”

[facesofedmonton]

“It was scary. There was like a denial phase. I was like, ‘No way am I pregnant. I can’t be pregnant.’ I mean, yeah, I was doing everything that you can do to get pregnant. But I can’t be pregnant right? It was hard when I found out. I didn’t even want to go tell my mom. Like this was unreal. Plus I never saw teen parents anywhere. Nowhere. Just saw them on TV. After telling my mom about it, it got easier because she was a really big help ... That was scarier. I thought becoming pregnant was scary. Telling your mom that you’re pregnant is probably ten times as terrifying. I was sixteen and then I had Gabriella at sixteen. And like a week later I turned seventeen. So yeah, I got to be sixteen and pregnant.”

“I left my school when I got pregnant because I didn’t know how people would react. So I did half of a semester of grade eleven by myself and then grade twelve ... because I didn’t tell anyone—I just kept it a secret—so that’s when I got involved with Terra. They helped me get through just being isolated all the time because I never saw my friends anymore. And in grade twelve I decided to go back to my regular high school. I’m glad that I did. People were very supportive.”

“I got a Terra worker, so we meet like once a week. Because I didn’t see a lot of people, it was nice to meet with her. Plus I knew nothing about being pregnant and having a kid, so she always had a lot to tell me. Just help prepare me for everything that was ahead of me. And even after I had Gabriella, me and her dad separated, so just helping us co-parent. If she wasn’t there, I don’t know how me and him would be able to co-parent right now ... they just have so many connections too. They know where to go. Like if you have a problem, and they can’t help you directly, they know exactly where to send you.”

[facesofedmonton]

“I’ve been playing since July last year. It was a couple weeks after it came out ... This is a gym. So right now I’m battling a gym and I just took out this guy. Right now the blue team owns the gym and I’m going to take it for the red team.”

“I’ve made a lot of friends, a lot of real life friends doing this. You meet all kinds of people, all ages. I’ve meet everyone from little kids to seniors doing this. If there’s a Pokemon in the wild or there’s a raid going on you actually have to do it with other people, the higher raids you can’t do on your own, so you have to meet with people and battle it together. It’s a very social game. It’s really good for me because I used to not be very social. Some people are still surprised that there are still so many Pokemon players. There’s one of my friends that I met in real life. She’s on my team and just lives a few blocks away. I met one of my neighbours in my building and we became friends.”

[facesofedmonton]

“I just picked him up and thought he looked like a Steve … I was driving home from my best friend’s house at midnight, and she lives out in St. Albert. He was slinking in the gutter. So I pulled over, and he came running over and he was half scared and half purring. And he was in pretty rough shape when I found him. I don’t know any of his story. I don’t know where he came from. He had flees and ear mites. I brought him right away to the animal hospital and while I was there they were like, ‘Do you want to sign a paper so that if we can’t find his family, you can be first in line to adopt him?’ And I was so emotional from finding him and being scared about him and crying that I was like, ‘Okay. For sure.’”