Food for Thought

Do You Know?

1. About our Schools:

Ogden School in Thunder Bay is one of twenty of the fastest improving elementary schools in Ontario are found in neighbourhoods that have among the lowest average parental incomes, according to the Fraser Institute's Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools 2009.

"Teachers and administrators in these schools have found ways to beat the odds and help their students do better than might be predicted by their families' average income," said Peter Cowley, Fraser Institute director of school performance studies.

The average parental income for all Ontario elementary schools listed in the Fraser Institute Report Card is $73,500. Sacred Heart (in Thunder Bay) showed the greatest improvement, going from an overall score of 2.5 in 2004 to 7.5 in 2008. Average family income for parents of students at Sacred Heart is $47,300.

The complete Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools 2009, including detailed results on all 2,778 schools, is available as a free pdf at http://www.fraserinstitute.org/.
Source: Lakesuperiornews.com

2. About the Gender Lens

“Looking at our communities and the world around us using a gender lens means looking at situations in our daily lives, societal events, policies and actions.

When we apply this lens to our work in poverty reduction and community action, the gender lens helps us consider how men and women are affected differently by the conditions of poverty and by the work we do to reduce poverty and increase access to jobs and social programs”.

From: The Thinking Behind the Wall Workshop: Why Gender and Poverty?
Adapted from “Starting with Women’s Lives: Changing Today’s Economy”


3. About Aboriginal Issues and the Gender Lens

Reasons why Aboriginal women have poor access to health care as identified by the interviewees:
• For those who live in rural areas, health care facilities are limited or non-existent
• For those who live in urban areas, women do not always have transportation (e.g., bus fare) or childcare readily available.
• Racism and discrimination in the health care system were identified as major problems.
• Aboriginal women who do not have treaty Indian status cannot always pay for the prescriptions that they need.

Source: Women, Income and Health inManitoba: An Overview and Ideas for Action.

4. About Hunger in Thunder Bay

The average increase in demand (for food) across the province was 13% whereas the increase in the Thunder Bay District was 28.5%

In March of 2008 we were providing food hampers to 5000 people each month and providing over 17,000 meals per month. In the year 2008 the RFDA supplied $506,000 in food and $30,000 in used winter clothing and brand new boots to those in need within Northwestern Ontario.

The next Hunger count will be taken in March of 2009. .The prices of food are elevated in Thunder Bay, Dryden, Ottawa and Bearskin Lake Ontario. This effects poor people's buying power and also costs our food banks more in purchases:

Source: http://www.heartandstroke.com/atf/cf/%7B99452D8B-E7F1-4BD6-A57D-B136CE6C95BF%7D/reportcard-eng-ON.pdf

See you Thursday! Comfy clothes, flat shoes, ready to talk...