the SOCIETY RECORD - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society

More documents

Recommendations

Info

ACCOLADES Madonna Doucette is a bit like Bartholomew Cubbins of Dr. Seuss fame … she wears a lot of hats! Madonna’s official title is LGBTQ Educator for Cape Breton and she is employed through the AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton. Her Candee McCarthy & Ann Marie MacInnes Sampson McDougall & Nova Scotia Legal Aid job takes her all over the island with the goal of promoting good health within the LGBTQ community as well as educating on homophobia and transphobia within all Cape Breton schools, from elementary to university. In her role as LGBTQ Educator, Madonna is also an advocate and support person for LGBTQ youth. Madonna calls herself “the gateway drug to other help”. She is a front-line worker in what she terms the “not-for-profit posse” of Cape Breton Island. She works very closely with the CBVRSB (school board’s) Cross Culture Human Rights Diversity Officer, and provides a network for her clients to addictions services, public health, social workers, legal aid, victims’ services and private lawyers. She provides extra support to most of these organizations in the area of LGBTQ issues. The people Madonna helps every day are experiencing health concerns, mental health issues, bullying and a variety of legal issues (including sometimes being victims of assault or harassment). A great deal of Madonna’s work lies in educating and supporting LGBTQ students, and she has helped start GSAs (Gay Straight Alliances) in many Cape Breton schools. Recently, she held a “train the trainer” seminar with the Glace Bay High GSA students, with a goal of “empowering the students with knowledge so they can educate their peers, including their teachers.” Madonna views education as integral to helping her clients advocate for and understand their own human rights. “There is an assumption that once a person self-identifies as gay or transgender, there is an automatic download of information,” she says. “It is dangerous for people to assume that the intricacies of gay rights, appropriate language and transgender issues are all suddenly known to someone because they identify themselves as something other than straight. It’s often new to them too. It’s important to reach out and educate our young people so they can educate those around them. We need to empower them with history and knowledge.” One of the challenges Madonna faces in her work is that she is often reaching out to what she terms an “invisible population”. She believes there is still a prominent “don’t ask, don’t tell” mentality throughout Cape Breton and despite the great inroads made with GSAs in schools, there remains a very apparent passive aggressiveness Madonna Doucette, LGBTQ Educator for Cape Breton toward queer students. So, Madonna has used social networking and its anonymity to spread awareness. The AIDS Coalition of Cape Breton created a profile on the popular dating website Plenty of Fish, with positive results. In this way, the organization is able to reach a population that is looking for sexual partners anonymously because they do not feel they have the freedom to be open about it. This allows a dialogue between the “invisible population” and knowledgeable people who have a variety of skills, information and experience, and who can provide healthy information that may not otherwise be accessible. Madonna is currently working on an awareness campaign with Junior Achievement in the Sydney Academy and Riverview high schools; it aims to combat bullying that arises from assumptions made about various identifiable teen social groups (jocks, skaters, metalheads, etc). The campaign allows the participants to identify themselves on a T-shirt. The shirts say, “I’m ___________ and I’m against bullying” with “No Assumptions” on the back. “The goal is to show students that although they have differences and may not be friends, they are not enemies,” Madonna explains. A march is planned through downtown Sydney, and she’s working hard to ensure a large turnout from a wide variety of social groups. She hopes the initiative will also help to raise the self-esteem of victims of bullying. Photo by Jason Jardine 14 The Society Record
Madonna was an active participant in the Society’s “Uncommon Law 4” conference that took place in Sydney last June. She shared her insights and experience, which contributed to the event’s success. She also served as one of the official photographers for the event and her photos were featured in the Fall 2012 edition of the Society Record. Madonna chairs an all-ages transgender support group, with a mandate of addressing the needs of that community and coming up with strategies and action plans to solve them. Examples of some issues that arise: how to come out at work, how to deal with your medical professionals, and advocating for more gender-neutral bathroom facilities within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. “It’s important to reach out and educate our young people so they can educate those around them. We need to empower them with history and knowledge.” “I believe in the healing powers of community storytelling. Hearing other’s stories normalize our own isolating experiences,” she explains. Madonna will always continue to advocate for human rights. “I get really passionate about it because I sometimes feel like I’m shouting ‘There is still a problem!’ when everyone’s moved on,” she says. “Our community has 30 to 40 per cent higher rates of addictions and suicides. That’s a problem. They continue to be victims of violent crimes. That’s a problem.” Madonna works very closely with Pride Cape Breton and enjoys celebrating the gains made in the LGBTQ movement over the years, but she will never be satisfied until true equal rights are achieved. In addition to her work as LGBTQ Educator and being a single parent to three teenage boys, Madonna is co-founder and Editor in Chief of the online magazine, Coastal Braid (www.coastalbraid.com). She and her partner Jason Jardine started the magazine last year. They had 7,000 to 10,000 hits a month within the first three months of launching the site, which she describes as a “work of passion”. The not-for-profit online magazine is geared towards the LGBTQ community of Cape Breton, though it has subscribers from all over the world. “Stop being so happy about what we have, and work for more!” The Society’s Gender Equity Committee welcomes your submission to Accolades. In each column we showcase a different lawyer, firm, group, association or community advocate to recognize how they are effecting change in Nova Scotia and the legal profession. Feel free to contact a member of the GEC or Emma Halpern, the Society’s Equity Officer, at equity@nsbs.org to discuss your submission. Chartered Accountant (CA) Chartered Business Valuator (CBV) Corporate Finance specialist (CF) Dan Jennings Raymond Yuill Chartered Accountants Failure Investigations Analysis and Design Building Restoration Reports for Litigation Consulting Professional Engineering James (Jim) W. Cowie, P.Eng. B.Sc., B.Eng., M.Eng. President Raymond Yuill is a full service team of Chartered Accountants providing services in accounting/assurance, personal/corporate taxation, business advisory, corporate finance/M&A and dispute/litigation support www.raymondyuill.ca djennings@raymondyuill.ca Suite 200 1046 Barrington Street Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 2R1 tel (902) 422-4493 fax (902) 422-5066 res (902) 423-4318 jwcowie@eastlink.ca www.cowieengineering.ca Halifax • Toronto Consulting Structural, Architectural and Forensic Engineering Incorporated in Halifax in 1972 Spring 2013 15
Page 1 and 2: the SOCIETY RECORD VOLUME 31 | NO.1
Page 3 and 4: Contents VOLUME 31 | NO 1 | Spring
Page 5 and 6: the president’s view As I travel
Page 7 and 8: BRIEFS Nova Scotia lawyers honoured
Page 9 and 10: BRIEFS Annual networking events for
Page 11 and 12: society news Council updates Societ
Page 13: society news For more details on th
Page 17 and 18: Illegal downloading of music, film
Page 19 and 20: Society’s successful initiative t
Page 21 and 22: say the public policy reasons are n
Page 23 and 24: “These dwindling numbers [of lawy
Page 25 and 26: Small rural and close communities -
Page 27 and 28: Photo by Eliot Wright/Provided by N
Page 29 and 30: “Volunteering allows for a break
Page 31 and 32: in police service delivery. They pr
Page 33 and 34: A desire to broaden and deepen her
Page 35 and 36: The students appreciate the opportu
Page 37 and 38: 7. Update! Make sure you have the l
Page 39 and 40: Spring 2013 39

the SOCIETY RECORD - Nova Scotia Barristers' Society

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?