Nabs Edge Walk at the CN Tower – Aug 2, 2011 Dare4Nabs.com

I promised my dear friend Sonya that I’d dedicate this blog post to helping her spread the word about her mission.

Here’s her story:

As I mentioned, late last week I signed up for the Nabs Edge walk (Dare4Nabs.com) on the CN Tower taking place on August 2^nd.  Still can’t believe it’s less than a week away…  Needless to say, besides being scared out of my mind, I’m a tad bit behind in fundraising (to put it mildly.)  Chris and Noah think it’s pretty cool though so I can’t chicken out!

What is Nabs Edge Walk?

OK…. so just so you haven’t figure out how scary this really is, check this out!:

“Edge Walk is where thrill-seeking adventurers will be taking a walk…outside and around the circumference of the CN Tower’s roof. Not quite your average stroll in the park……EdgeWalk is the first attraction of its kind in North America and the world’s highest full circle hands-free walk on a 5 ft wide ledge. Don’t worry though, it’s only 116 stories above the ground.”

OK, so Sonya you are truly brave for doing this.

Nabs supports Canadian professionals in the communications industry facing personal, career and family challenges due to illness, injury, unemployment or financial difficulties by helping those with job searches and short term financial aid.

Here are some stories that I grabbed from the site:

Finding inner strength through NABS

A 50-year old divorced woman who had spent her whole career in the advertising industry was diagnosed with an illness that required long periods of time in the hospital. She had to resign from her position and was only left with government funding, which wasn’t enough to cover her expenses.

NABS began providing this woman with financial assistance to help her with rent, utilities and other necessities. Relieved from financial worries, this strong, resilient woman, managed to find freelance work, and when that wasn’t enough to cover expenses, NABS was there. Recently, she found a full-time job and continues to express her gratitude to NABS—not only for paying her bills, but also for helping her draw on her inner strength and talent to secure freelance work and, ultimately, full-time employment.

Solving problems with a different approach

With four children, it was very difficult for this 35-year-old man when both he and his wife filed for personal bankruptcy, on which they were still paying penalties. With his wife unemployed, his salary wasn’t enough to cover the young family’s needs.

NABS not only provided financial assistance, but we also offered the family financial, career and personal counseling. NABS Personal and Career Counseling was a great help to his wife and enabled her to find work. In the meantime, the man found a second job to help supplement their income, while our career counsellor helped him outline an alternate career path, which ultimately led to a better paying job.

Back on their feet in three months

When he applied to NABS, he was a 34-year-old married marketing manager with a young son. He had been unemployed for almost three years. His wife’s salary wasn’t enough to cover all the family’s expenses and they had used up all their savings and RRSPs. NABS arranged financial assistance to help the family with essential needs. We also arranged financial, career and personal counseling to enable them to get back on their feet.

The financial assistance kept the couple afloat while they worked with a financial counselor to devise a plan that would help them make changes and lower their expenses. With the help of our career counselor, the husband created a plan that helped him find full-time employment. By providing the plans and motivation this couple so desperately needed, NABS was able to help this family get back on its feet within three months

Sonys’a request:

I need all the help I can get with raising donations.  Anyone can donate here,  I realize it’s a last minute request but any help you can give me would be so appreciated!

Please donate!  And don’t miss this amazing event.. from your comfy seats down….down….down below!

Good luck Sonya!

Fit vs. Fiction Body Awareness: A Platform to Raise awareness of Society’s Impact on OUR Kids’ Self Images

Marci Warhaft Nadler (@fit_vs_fiction) and I met about a year ago and the more I got to know her and what she was doing to raise awareness about what societal messages are doing to our kids’ perception of beauty and fitness, the more I learned about how important this topic is, and how many more parents need to be aware of its existence. I cannot put into words how this has changed my awareness and impact on my own kids. I’ve asked Marcie to tell her story so that I could post it here on my blog. Here are her words:

“Over the last few years I’ve become more and more concerned with the amount of pressure being put on kids to live up to the unrealistic images they see on TV and in magazines. Hard to believe, but boys and girls as young 7 yrs old have begun putting their health at risk by turning to drastic measures to lose weight in an effort to be skinny. While the recent focus on erasing the problem of childhood obesity is well intended, it may actually be trying to fix one problem by creating a different one.

Feelings of shame and guilt are resulting in parents stressing over every bite their child takes and every minute of TV they watch and this stress is filtering down to their kids. For every obese child in Canada, there are even more who are not obese, but who THINK they are and hate themselves because of it. Fear is not the answer. It’s time to stop fearing food and start learning how to enjoy and appreciate it with balance and moderation.

Fit vs Fiction is breaking down myths related to beauty and fitness and gives kids the chance to TALK about this issue in a way they never have before. After conquering my own severe body image and eating disorder issues for over 20 yrs, my goal is to prevent other kids from the pitfalls I wasn’t lucky enough to avoid.

The Fit vs Fiction Body Image Awareness campaign was designed to wake people up to the fact that our kids are struggling and need our help. We can’t control the negative messages society throws at them on a daily basis, but we can make sure they hear the right messages from us and that our voices are even louder!

Help me help kids like themselves again and forward these posters to everyone you know!”

Visit Marcie’s Facebook Page.

Power to the People: New Media has come to the Aid of Revolution

Yesterday I wrote a post on the Digital Journal, entitled, “Revolution and the Power of New Media” My view is that social media will change the way people will act/react against a suppressed regime. It has proven to already change the way these governments react when forced transparency comes into view and the world is watching. It’s already happening in this domino effect we’re seeing in the Middle East. I’ve also posted my article below:

The recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Bahrain and Libya are evidence of how new media is giving rise to a new confidence in suppressed nations.

The ability to collaborate at will, and send messages to the  world at large has provided a strong outlet to an otherwise disenfranchised  population. The world is watching and the power of new tools makes it  increasingly difficult for dictatorships to contain local events and sustain  any kind of propaganda it has created.
I’ve kept an eye on the events in  each of these nations.  Most recently, Libya linking to the most recent news via Google has been the my source for the breaking news from the man-on-the-street.   The constant stream from those caught in the situation is staggering:   Some noted tweets:

Sadly, the situation in Libya has  seriously deteriorated. Gaddafi has turned off the Internet and massacres  across the country have begun.

The massacre in #Libya  is disgusting & shocking. Can only hope it’s the last days of this  regim… (cont) http://deck.ly/~8eyod

u r growing & yr voice is being heard #gadafi    is out of his comfort zone keep the pressure.Millions of the arab  american r behind u

youtube is accessible in Tripoli, please  upload videos now #Libya

Muammar Gaddafi’s son: “We will  fight until the last bullet”  #libya

This past Sunday,  Feb 20th, the US Department of State (Bureaucracy of Democracy, Human Rights  and labor) created a page on Facebook denouncing the situation.

It’s  clear in Egypt, Tunisia and even Libya, that despite the government’s ability  to disable major communication channels, demonstrators are finding ways to  congregate and collaborate with resounding voice, defiant conviction and a  fervor that will not be denied.

Curation allows individuals to  aggregate relevant information wherever it occurs into one application in an  organized framework. I set up an account on Storify and tested this on Friday,  re some rumours about Steve Jobs’ ailing health. I pulled RSS feed using specific key words and applied the same for Twitter  and Facebook. By allowing me to properly sequence the events, this app allowed  me to (within a short amount of time) be an investigative journalist and  validate whether the stated rumour about the 6 weeks left that Jobs  purportedly to had left to live was indeed true. It also allowed me to share  my findings with my networks and provide everyone I knew access to the same  information. This information was critical in the Middle East events and it  has allowed individuals to pull in feeds from Youtube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter to create a chronologic narrative of all these events and syndicate them.

Another important innovation is Tor.  This  app can be used online and is downloadable on Android phones and claims,  ‘Anonymity Online:  Protect your privacy. Defend yourself against network surveillance and traffic  analysis.” Used by journalists to protect sources of information,  and  “activists to report abuses from danger zones”, this application has proven  critical for Android users to access email, messenger without being tracked or  even blocked.

Tom Hayes of the Huffington Post remarks about a number  of other applications in his post a few days ago. His article gave a practical view of technology and means the common  people were using to make their voice be heard. Even the government’s insane  attempt to go to lengths to mute the voice of the people by disabling the  internet has not weakened individuals. Their voices and the images they’ve  created are loud and clear and it’s there for the world to see.

As I  write this article, Gadaffi is on his way out of Libya. I shed a tear as I  read, “There’s something  extraordinarily helpless about sitting here on Twitter while people are likely  being killed right now in Tripoli. #libya”

And  yet I am encouraged by the fact that I need not rely on tomorrow’s paper to  tell me what is happening now… That we have evolved with journalists and  commoners in a single voice…  A voice made that much more powerful  because of the technology that has enabled, and continues to enable its  amplification. It is so clear that new media is increasingly putting the power  in the hands of the individual, perhaps the much needed innovation that will  radically transforms the way people are governed.

The point here is  this and it’s quoted from a must-read article so well-stated from Macleans.ca: “The revolution is being blogged, tweeted, shot and  streamed by those in the act of making  it.”