Shaking rehabilitation foundations

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MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2015 SECTION GT
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Shaking rehabilitation foundations
Rehab revolutionaries hope
for healthy haul from campaign
MICHAEL ROBINSON
STAFF REPORTER
For patients with disabling injuries, Toronto Rehab’s
iDAPT Centre exists somewhere between University
Ave. and a near-magical realm.
It’s a cathedral for cutting-edge inventiveness whose
clergy, made up of industrial designers and biomedical engineers, have earned a reputation for shaking
the foundations of rehabilitation science.
On Monday, Toronto Rehab Foundation launches its latest fundraising campaign, which it hopes will bring in
$100 million for advancing research programs and unlocking new rehabilitation
tools.
Given today’s aging population, it’s an
appeal that stroke survivor Howard
Rocket believes is critical.
The clock had read roughly 6:30 p.m. on
Oct. 27, 1995 when Rocket’s headache
turned catastrophic. Though he didn’t
know it at the time, he’d just experienced
a massive stroke.
“It got really intense and you just know
when something bad is happening so I
started to go up stairs, got to my room,
collapsed on my knees and called 911.”
The blood clot lodged deep in Rocket’s
brain left his left side paralyzed. His arm
simply shut off, sentenced to hang in a
seemingly lifeless state. At its end, Rocket’s hand, its five fingers clenched closed,
was locked in the shape of fist.
“Can you imagine a fly landing on your
nose and not being able to do anything?”
he said.
But now after 20 years of imprisoning
paralysis, he’s been given parole.
Rocket has gradually restored hand and
arm function through MyndMove, a device developed from scratch and tested at
the Toronto Rehab iDAPT Centre’s rehabilitation engineering lab.
“I no longer have to wear mittens,” he
said, steering the tips of his relaxed fingers into a black, fingered glove. “I drive a
three-wheeled electric bike, though not
very fast, but can show people I’m turning
left behind me by holding out my arm."
REHAB continued on GT4
Trades academy
gives a leg up to
aboriginal youth
Training program offers more than $12,000 worth
of free instruction to pre-apprenticeship students
SARA MOJTEHEDZADEH
WORK AND WEALTH REPORTER
COLE BURSTON/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Meow Mur roams Yonge St. and talks to passersby on Aug. 29 for this year’s Buskerfest.
Buskerfest in jeopardy
without Scotiabank support
Festival and the cash it brings in for charity at risk
after bank pulls back on multiple sponsorships
MAY WARREN
STAFF REPORTER
It’s been hard to miss for more than 15 years, taking
over downtown Toronto streets with fire-breathers,
contortionists and breakdancers.
But the future of Buskerfest, and the money it
produces for Epilepsy Toronto, may be in jeopardy
now that its biggest sponsor, Scotiabank, has pulled
out.
Geoff Bobb, executive director of Epilepsy Toronto,
praised the bank for its past support and said it
provided his organization with lots of notice of its
decision, as well as an external agency to help them
find a new sponsor. But so far the non-profit has not
had any luck funding a replacement.
“We’re very concerned. We’d hate to lose this event,”
said Bobb, adding it has become the biggest busker
festival in North America and one of the biggest in the
world.
Scotiabank announced it was withdrawing partnership from Buskerfest as well as Nuit Blanche, the
CHIN Picnic and Toronto Caribbean Carnival (for-
merly known as Caribana) this month.
Bobb said that although he is “knocking on as many
doors” as he can to find a new sponsor or “cobble
together” support from a few, it’s a small window
because at some point the organization needs to start
booking performers for next year.
He estimates the festival, run annually over the last
weekend in August on Yonge St. in downtown Toronto, costs about $650,000 just to break even. However,
it provides $250,000 for Epilepsy Toronto, which he
calls “a big chunk” of the organization’s revenue.
Admission is by donation.
“If we lose the festival, it will impact the services that
we provide to the kids with epilepsy and their families,” said Bobb.
“We’re not prepared to walk away from it easily.”
Clinton Braganza, senior vice-president of Canadian marketing at Scotiabank, said the decision not to
renew existing sponsorship agreements with all four
events, which were up this year, came out of a yearly
strategic review.
“What drove that is our desire to be much more
focused in what we’re doing,” he said. Those areas of
focus are hockey, arts and community marathons.
SCOTIABANK continued on GT2
It was the summer of 2011, and Ian Harper was combing the Six Nations reserve
near Brantford in search of the next generation of welders.
As the head of an innovative new training program to get more aboriginal youth
into the trades, Harper had resources and
expertise at his disposal. But he lacked
one vital ingredient.
“I actually paid a guy with a pickup truck
to go around dropping off flyers in mailboxes on the rez, because we couldn’t fill
up the program,” he recalls.
Now, welding union United Association
local 67’s Technical Trades Academy
boasts kids who bike 20 kilometres from
the reserve to make it to class. It has
young people who show up for a day of
welding despite having just come off the
night shift. It is celebrating 16 podium
finishes in nation-wide skills competitions over the past three years.
And for many students, it has proved a
life-changing experience.
“I was working security and smoke
shops — nothing paying out. You’re not
learning anything, you’re not pushing
yourself to be better,” says student Mike
Mt. Pleasant, a 31-year-old dad from Six
Nations. But welding?
“I love it.”
“The aboriginal population is the youngest and fastest-growing, so it’s a madein-Canada solution to these sorts of skills
shortages.” adds Sara Monture, the executive director of Aboriginal Apprenticeship Board of Ontario. “There is a population that is ready to step in.”
AABO is one of many aboriginal employment organizations partnered with
the academy. Aside from its concerted
effort to reach out to indigenous communities, the program offers more than
$12,000 worth of free instruction to preapprenticeship students of all backgrounds with a strong emphasis on securing them decent jobs.
“The aboriginal
population is
the youngest
and fastestgrowing,
so it’s a
made-in-Canada
solution to
these sorts
of skills
shortages.”
SARA MONTURE
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR,
ABORIGINAL
APPRENTICESHIP
BOARD OF
ONTARIO
TRADES continued on GT7
RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Shelley Longboat, a graduate of the training program at UA
Welding and Technology, looks over a Gas Lab training board.