Filmmaker, doctor honoured for documentary
07/04/15 12:58 Filed in: Maternal mortality in Rural Africa
Filmmaker, doctor honoured for documentary
Jessica Laws/For The Intelligencer
Monday, April 6, 2015 2:45:20 EDT PM
Two local childhood friends were one of the winners awarded at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference Film Festival.
Ottawa doctor, global health researcher and Belleville native Dr. Gail Webber and Belleville filmmaker Doug Knutson of Windswept Productions spent a month in Tanzania in 2012 making the short documentary “Saving Mothers: Preventing Maternal Mortality in Rural Africa.”
Read More...
Jessica Laws/For The Intelligencer
Monday, April 6, 2015 2:45:20 EDT PM
Two local childhood friends were one of the winners awarded at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference Film Festival.
Ottawa doctor, global health researcher and Belleville native Dr. Gail Webber and Belleville filmmaker Doug Knutson of Windswept Productions spent a month in Tanzania in 2012 making the short documentary “Saving Mothers: Preventing Maternal Mortality in Rural Africa.”
Read More...
David Versus Goliath
26/03/13 12:49 Filed in: Captain Meyers
David Versus Goliath
Fred Meyers’ Desperate Battle To Save His Family Farm From Expropriation
By Paul Dalby - Watershed Magazine
Trenton farmer’s land officially expropriated
The letter arrived in the mailbox at the end of Frank Meyers’ driveway, tucked in with a few bills and a supermarket flyer. It landed like a ticking time bomb.
Inside a brown manila envelope, the letter from the federal Department of Justice informed the 84-year-old farmer that the land he and his ancestors had worked continuously for more than two centuries was no longer his.
The letter Mr. Meyers received from federal lawyers warned him he is now “unlawfully occupying land absolutely vested in the Crown”, and if he doesn’t leave right away, they will send in the sheriff’s bailiffs to remove him.
In the arcane world of the government land grab, this is the “drop dead” stance. It means that for Mr. Meyers and his family, all their petitions, protests, and letters over the past six years have officially come to nothing. They lose.
Read More...
Fred Meyers’ Desperate Battle To Save His Family Farm From Expropriation
By Paul Dalby - Watershed Magazine
Trenton farmer’s land officially expropriated
The letter arrived in the mailbox at the end of Frank Meyers’ driveway, tucked in with a few bills and a supermarket flyer. It landed like a ticking time bomb.
Inside a brown manila envelope, the letter from the federal Department of Justice informed the 84-year-old farmer that the land he and his ancestors had worked continuously for more than two centuries was no longer his.
The letter Mr. Meyers received from federal lawyers warned him he is now “unlawfully occupying land absolutely vested in the Crown”, and if he doesn’t leave right away, they will send in the sheriff’s bailiffs to remove him.
In the arcane world of the government land grab, this is the “drop dead” stance. It means that for Mr. Meyers and his family, all their petitions, protests, and letters over the past six years have officially come to nothing. They lose.
Read More...
Family of a Loyalist war hero vs. Joint Task Force 2
05/04/12 15:24 Filed in: Captain Meyers
Family of a Loyalist war hero vs. Joint Task Force 2
After years of fighting Ottawa to keep his land, the descendant of John Walden Meyer may have lost the battle
by Michael Friscolanti on Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:00pm - Macleans Magazine
In some ways, John Walden Meyers was the 18th-century equivalent of a special forces commando. A New York farmer who sided with the British during the American Revolution, he became a legendary loyalist spy, a giant of a man with fire-red hair and a gift for infiltrating enemy lines. Two centuries later, some of the stories have morphed into myth (according to one uncorroborated tale, he wore moccasins that were pointy at both ends so his footprints couldn’t be tracked), but the historians do agree on one detail: patriot children considered him the bogeyman. If you don’t behave, their mothers would say, Capt. Meyers “will come and eat you.”
The good captain is most famous for directing a late-night raid on the Albany mansion of Philip Schuyler, one of the Continental Army’s highest-ranking officers. Although the mission—to snatch the general—was doomed to fail, Meyers somehow survived the ensuing gun battle and led his troops back to Quebec. “He had plenty of close calls and narrow escapes over the years,” says Doug Knutson, a filmmaker who has spent two decades researching Meyers’s heroics. “He was a strong individual, but more than that, he was very innovative and resourceful.” Read More...
After years of fighting Ottawa to keep his land, the descendant of John Walden Meyer may have lost the battle
by Michael Friscolanti on Thursday, April 5, 2012 12:00pm - Macleans Magazine
In some ways, John Walden Meyers was the 18th-century equivalent of a special forces commando. A New York farmer who sided with the British during the American Revolution, he became a legendary loyalist spy, a giant of a man with fire-red hair and a gift for infiltrating enemy lines. Two centuries later, some of the stories have morphed into myth (according to one uncorroborated tale, he wore moccasins that were pointy at both ends so his footprints couldn’t be tracked), but the historians do agree on one detail: patriot children considered him the bogeyman. If you don’t behave, their mothers would say, Capt. Meyers “will come and eat you.”
The good captain is most famous for directing a late-night raid on the Albany mansion of Philip Schuyler, one of the Continental Army’s highest-ranking officers. Although the mission—to snatch the general—was doomed to fail, Meyers somehow survived the ensuing gun battle and led his troops back to Quebec. “He had plenty of close calls and narrow escapes over the years,” says Doug Knutson, a filmmaker who has spent two decades researching Meyers’s heroics. “He was a strong individual, but more than that, he was very innovative and resourceful.” Read More...
African plight hits home
25/03/12 15:32 Filed in: Maternal mortality in Rural Africa
African plight hits home
By Jason Miller, The Intelligencer
Posted 10 days ago
A Belleville filmmaker and an Ottawa physician recently teamed up to capture the plight of Tanzania women who died during childbirth.
Dr. Gail Webber, a Belleville native now residing in Ottawa, is behind a project aimed at providing the crucial medication required to save the lives of hundreds of women living in remote parts of the African country.
Webber and filmmaker Doug Knutson brought their campaign to Victoria Avenue Baptist Church, Sunday, showcasing video evidence of their recent trip to Sharati Tanzania, an isolated community where dozens of women die yearly due to PPH (post partum haemorrhage - bleeding after childbirth). Read More...
By Jason Miller, The Intelligencer
Posted 10 days ago
A Belleville filmmaker and an Ottawa physician recently teamed up to capture the plight of Tanzania women who died during childbirth.
Dr. Gail Webber, a Belleville native now residing in Ottawa, is behind a project aimed at providing the crucial medication required to save the lives of hundreds of women living in remote parts of the African country.
Webber and filmmaker Doug Knutson brought their campaign to Victoria Avenue Baptist Church, Sunday, showcasing video evidence of their recent trip to Sharati Tanzania, an isolated community where dozens of women die yearly due to PPH (post partum haemorrhage - bleeding after childbirth). Read More...
In search of good ideas
28/07/11 13:17 Filed in: Maternal mortality in Rural Africa
In search of good ideas
by Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
As a family physician with a PhD in population health, Ottawa’s Gail Webber is used to tackling challenges, big and small. But creating a two-minute video to explain why her idea to save mothers in rural Africa deserves federal research funding was a new challenge and one that took her outside her comfort zone. As did the fact that the public was invited to vote on the video.
(CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO)
It’s all part of a new approach to foreign aid that considers public engagement — and how convincingly scientists can make their cases to taxpayers — a factor in deciding how to distribute development dollars.
“Please vote for this bold idea,” says Webber, dressed in surgical scrubs for the video, after explaining that women in rural Tanzania have a one-in-23 risk of dying during childbirth. “These women and their families deserve a better chance at survival.”
Read More...
by Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
As a family physician with a PhD in population health, Ottawa’s Gail Webber is used to tackling challenges, big and small. But creating a two-minute video to explain why her idea to save mothers in rural Africa deserves federal research funding was a new challenge and one that took her outside her comfort zone. As did the fact that the public was invited to vote on the video.
(CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO)
It’s all part of a new approach to foreign aid that considers public engagement — and how convincingly scientists can make their cases to taxpayers — a factor in deciding how to distribute development dollars.
“Please vote for this bold idea,” says Webber, dressed in surgical scrubs for the video, after explaining that women in rural Tanzania have a one-in-23 risk of dying during childbirth. “These women and their families deserve a better chance at survival.”
Read More...