Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 27, 1978, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press monday november 27, 1978 City news 2nd class mail registration number 0286 Alice Krueger Day care study disturbing a study of Day care in Winnipeg came out with some disturbing and serious findings last week findings that must be of real concern to any one who has children in Day care. An estimated to City children Are in unlicensed family Day care Homes some of which Are not giving proper care. Cases of child abuse and even criminal negligence have come to Light in some of these Homes. In one Case a woman claimed her children were being Tranquilli Zed at their Day care Home. In another instance the commis Sion found evidence that children were not being treated for injuries. The commission studying Day care heard of one Home where a Mother was looking after no less than 17 children under the age of six. She spent most of her time doing her own housework while the children were left virtually unattended in front of the to. Frequently the older Chil Dren were lost when their parents came to fetch them. This illustration is an extreme example of a not uncommon the report states. More than half of All Day care centres in the City do not comply with nutrition standards set Down by City bylaw simply because they Don t have adequate funding. The bylaw requires that a child spending More than four hours in a Day care facility be provided with a hot meal including meat and vegetables and at least one nutritious snack. One Large Centre which the com Mission visited served a lunch con sisting of one half slice of White bread a one Inch cube of cheese and a Small dish of canned peaches. As Many As Winnipeg school children under the age of 12 Are in need of lunch and after school programs. Some of these children aged six seven or eight years Are at Home alone or out on the Street for at least an hour at lunch time or for several hours after school until their parents return from work. Those Are just some of the findings of a study commissioned by the United Way of Winnipeg. Granted they Are the More sensational but that these kind of situations should exist at All even if Only in a Small number of Day care Homes or centres is a disgrace. What if it happens to be the place where you re dropping your kids every Day there is a real Job to be done to flush out the com Mission chairman Ellen Gallagher said in reference to the Many unlicensed family Day care Homes in the City. The inadequacies of Day care ser vices Are most blatant in the area of family Day care As opposed to Day care centres the report states. Family Day care is the form of substitute care most often used by parents yet it is the least regulated supervised subsidized and acknowledged. It s estimated that Over half the children of working or student parents in Winnipeg Are cared for in family Day care Homes but Only about 100 of these Homes Are licensed. We consider the Lack of regulation in family Day care to be analogous to permitting the continued existence of numerous unregulated Small Busin esses a situation contemporary society does not the report states. In this Case the commodity offered by the business Enterprise is the care of Young Gallagher says the difficulty in weeding out the so called Fly by fighters lies in the fact that Many of the children involved Are under two years of age and thus virtually unable to complain about inadequate care. Furthermore parents Are ashamed to admit they May have been negligent in placing their children in a Home where care was simply not Ade quate. The answer the study concludes is for the province to enact a Day care act to provide a comprehensive and coherent Legal framework for provincial Day care. Such legislation should require licensing of both family and group Day care set out Basic standards and establish Means of enforcing standards. The study is a commendable Effort and is the first real comprehensive look at Day care in the City. It took More than a year to Complete and was an energetic undertaking by three commissioners who inc Dently did the Job on a strictly Volunteer basis. Besides Gallagher who is a journalist the other two commission members were Aleda Turnbull a social worker by profession and Harry Munro formerly of the Winni Peg and District labor Council. They make 67 recommendations in All but unfortunately few of them Are Likely to be implemented because they Cost Money. Certainly not in the immediate future anyway. We would have extreme difficulty in moving in that direction in the economic circumstances that we re health minister Bud Sherman said although promising to study the report within the next few Days. The minister did however express concern Over some of the findings if those Are valid findings then those Are certainly serious. I would certainly be prepared to have Rny office and our Day care program director discuss those findings and to Correct the of course if there were sufficient Public pressure to improve Day care services the government would somehow find More Money. But that Day has not yet arrived. In our society it is generally accepted that everyone pays education tax whether they have kids in school or not. There is also Public acceptance that we House and feed those who land in jail. But somehow we have not yet come around to accepting responsibility for children who need care while their parents work to feed clothe and support them. The Elm Creek hotel hat collection is the focus of attention from patrons but it is for show not for Sale owner says no Deal some vanish anyway hats draw covetous admirers by Andy Blicq if you hang your hat in the Elm Creek hotel you might have to fight to get it Back. A lot of people ask if they re for said Garry Chan Way owner of the hotel and curator of the 70-Odd hard hat and Cap collection hanging Over the bar in the hotel s Beer Par Lor. Chan Way said he s not Selling them and added that he would t take one belonging to a customer without per Mission. But his collection in t Safe. One for sure was taken by an admiring customer he said. I be had one or two thai have Digap on the other hand he has Only paid for one of the Chapeau s in his collection the rest being submitted by friends and members of construction Crews that frequent his 80-year-old hotel 32 Kilometres Southwest of Winnipeg. Chan Way said he started the collection four or five years ago after a machinery dealer in town gave him a Cap. Since then he has had donations from visitors from As far away As British Columbia. Visitors to Chan Way s bar in the aging hotel have More to look at than his hat collection. Among a collection of stuffed Ani Mals adorning the Wood panelled Walls is an unusual White Rabbit the regulars Call either Peter or har Riet. Peter Harriet lies on its Back on an Eye level shelf with a bottle of scotch propped in its arms taking a drink. Recent development in and around Elm population about 300 has improved the Outlook for this town. Chan Way said the town will soon have a sewer and water system and with Grain elevator construction under Way the town in a few years should Start to do although he s closed the third floor of the aging Brick hotel he keeps five rooms open mostly for the use of construction workers. Novel a Chance to understand mennonite heritage survival explored you and continued Katya As i she had t heard come from a people history is covered with the blood of the martyrs. We have been eternal wanderers upon this Earth for conscience s Sake and we have gone from country to country searching for a place where we could worship and teach As our conscience dictated. Deluded and foolish we May be according to your modern notions but we Are an honest devout and sincere people who never wanted anything but to do our Best for by Debbie Lyon Katya the matriarch in Ingrid Rimland s the wanderers did t live to know whether her grand daughter Karin would come to understand this View of her mennonite heritage. But to give others a Chance to understand Rimland has Chroni cled the poignant struggle for sur Vival by pacifist mennonite Farmers like Katya who were caught up in the russian revolution and two world wars. Rimland s medium is the novel but she has built upon her own and her family s experiences to provide an account of yet another of this Century s holocausts. Rimland was in Winnipeg recently to promote the Book and speak at the University of Winnipeg where a chair in mennonite studies was recently established. Her lecture attracted Many former friends and teachers from Paraguay. Rimland who Only had about three years of formal schooling by the time she was 14, emigrated to Canada in 1960. In 1967, her family went to Wichita Kansas where her handicapped son could receive Spe Cial attention. At age 31, she enrolled in the Wichita state University. She Hopes to Complete her doctorate in education by May. Rimland now lives with her two teenage sons in Stockton califor Nia East of san Francisco. A school psychologist she now has a private practice. But she said i would love nothing More than just to for four decades after 1914, the mennonites who developed Prosper ing colonies in Southern Russia faced the ravages of armies revolutionaries starvation and Joseph Stalin. They dispersed with the Retreat of German forces from the soviet Union during the second world War. And they marched into the destruction accompanying the col lapse of the third Reich. Those who survived went to North America if they could. Several thou Sands of others including a Young Ingrid Rimland were shipped to South America to try to eke out of the paraguayan Jungle a life with meaning. It was some time before Rimland herself could come to terms with that heritage and understand that i was hurting for a reason that things had happened to me that were bigger than my own she explained during an interview in Winnipeg. She realized she had a real Odys sey on her hands a powerful Story she feared would t be told because the older generations were dying and Many of her Peers were too inarticulate to Tell Over an eight year period rim land set out to explore the philosophical and psychological struggles of the mennonites As they sought to Cope with their situation. Her Story revolves around the experiences of Katya her daughter Sara and Young Karin. Rimland wanted her account of this modern struggle of a people with Strong convictions to reach a general audience. She believes his tory has been silent or at Best one sided about the mennonite experience. We know a great Deal about the German atrocities in the second world but what America at Large 1 feel does not know emotionally is that we did have in Europe not one dictator but two and Stalin outdid the mennonites were welcomed to Southern Russia by czarist in the 1800s. Their colonies grew they were allowed religious Freedom their people protected their Ger Man culture by remaining separate from the russian peasants. But animosity towards them was spurred by the first world War. In the years of revolutionary turmoil their colonies and their women were raped by competing armies and bandits. Their assets Thrift a penchant for hard work integrity pacifism became liabilities. Their German background and their Middle class wealth made them targets of communist terror Rimland said. Some escaped. But in 1929, the russians closed the Gates condemning thousands of mennonites to some 15 years of horror and uncertainty. Rimland who was born in 1936 in Haubstadt Ukraine said her father was exiled by the russians in 1941. Most if not All mennonite families lost at least one male member. In this context an overwhelming sense of Relief and Welcome greeted the invading German forces during the War. Many mennonites later undertook the trek to Germany As the army retreated. But russian Pursuit brought Ren ewed terror. Rimland was nine years old during the Battle for Ber Lin and the collapse of the Reich. She knew of torture murder and rape of Days when it seemed to us there was no one left in our area but our family and a few russian sol a simple people mostly non Polit ical the mennonites could not be Lieve the defeat. The Power of indoctrination was so Strong. The end was there and yet it was not to be believed. I think we have a lot to learn about the Power of indo Trina Rimland commented. Paraguay offered no release from daily struggle. The beginnings of the German colonies were incredibly deprived. The beginnings were almost As horrendous As War. All we had were the Jungle and knives it took years to have crops stores Wells mail delivery roads i grew up there almost locally isolated from the world the mennonites tried to rebuild the German colonies like they were in Russia. But hey could trustees under fire for Lack of by Glen Mackenzie Winnipeg school division s Lack of a Community schools policy came under fire from educators and Resi dents at a conference saturday. John Bates coordinator of inner City programs for Toronto s Board of education called on Winnipeg trustees to Start by simply endorsing Community schools. Money in t the answer. A straight honest endorse ment is the he told about 100 people at a Community education arid multiculturalism conference at tech Nical vocational High school tech Bates said Winnipeg proponents of Community schools have met More obstacles than any such group he knows of in North America. The Point of frustration has been he said. A Community school is a Public school where parents become actively involved in education. Parents serve on committees which have some control Over school policy and paid Community coordinators in some schools encourage parental activity. Keith Cooper a Winnipeg division area superintendent told the Confer ence the division is completely and totally fouled up on Community Cooper said advocates want their school designated a Community school but dislike some feature of an existing Community school. Thai kind of nonsense has got to he said. A Community schools policy paper brought to the Board in june 1977, by then trustee Don Reed has never been adopted. Community schools has been on the Board s committee of the whole Agenda since then. Trustee Mira Spivak Board chair Man said there is no policy because no one agrees what a Community school is. The current Board sup ports Community schools in principle she said. Mrs. Spivak also said she thinks a flexible approach is the key. Dan Leckie Toronto Board of Edu cation chairman said Lack of Consen sus Means a set policy is even More important. He said in an inter View his Board has a 300-Page policy based on the notion All schools Are Community schools. The process works in stages and parents Are Able to make some decisions he said. Carol Burnett an organizer of Tyndall Park Community school said her group fought for four years to obtain their school. Opened in february of this year the school has a capacity of 650 students but an enrolment of 871. There Are five por table classrooms and we May be the first to have two Storey she said. Burnett also said the school has 110 Parent volunteers of whom 60 come in one Day a week. She called on Winnipeg trustees to establish a Community schools policy which puts their Money where their Mouths Are. You be got an lion budget and you should look at How you re spending she said. Barbara Bodner a Norquay school Parent committee member said a major problem she faces is knowing what residents want. Money for a coordinator would solve the prob Lem she said. We re not asking for a handout we just need some she said. 20% of pupils immigrants about 20 per cent of Winnipeg school division students emigrated to the City in the past five years trustee Skafti Csolty Borgford said Satur Day. He told a multiculturalism and Community education conference that of the division s or so students Are children of immigrants. The largest groups Are portuguese and native indians he said. Other Large groups Are filipinos chileans 475 and chinese he said. Many of these children have to learn English. Borgford said the Divi Sion needs More financial help to Leach them. The Federal government gave the province a special Grant in 1977 and the province gave the Divi Sion million of it he said. He advocated that the school Board pressure the Federal and provincial governments for More Money. Officials in those governments Aren t bad people. They just Don t know what our problem he said ;