Please watch
Maria Victoria Venancio: Paralyzed Filipino TFW fights to stay in Edmonton | CTV News
Maria Vanancio has been haunting me.
Not literally, mind you, but certainly costing me some sleep. You see, I was a Temporary Foreign Worker once, just like her. With no job prospects for teachers or Arts grads in Alberta in the mid-90s (thank you, Ralph Klein), my husband and I packed away everything we owned and took our sorry selves to Japan to live and to teach. We were lucky: as university graduates, we had the opportunity to land some lucrative positions - working in Japan changed us, working with its people made us better.
Still, it was difficult at times. Getting sick was a frequent activity in the first year - all those new viruses and allergens put us in our local hospital a handful of times. Our doctor was an older man, in his 50s; he would dye his white, Einsteinesque hair purple to make his pediatric patients laugh. He and his nursing staff were something else; we ALWAYS felt safe and cared for. I couldn't imagine having had to endure illness without being able to rely on them.
As Canadians, Albertans, Edmontonians, we've endured a good deal of tragedy in the last year - Nathan O'Brien and his grandparents, Alvin & Kathy Liknes in Calgary; W/O Patrice Vincent and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo's in Quebec and Ottawa; Cindy Duong, Thuy Tien Truong and seven others in Edmonton just after Christmas. We've rallied around their families, helping, searching, raising funds. It's who we are. So helping out Maria should be a no-brainer.
Maria Victoria Venancio: Paralyzed Filipino TFW fights to stay in Edmonton | CTV News
Maria Vanancio has been haunting me.
Not literally, mind you, but certainly costing me some sleep. You see, I was a Temporary Foreign Worker once, just like her. With no job prospects for teachers or Arts grads in Alberta in the mid-90s (thank you, Ralph Klein), my husband and I packed away everything we owned and took our sorry selves to Japan to live and to teach. We were lucky: as university graduates, we had the opportunity to land some lucrative positions - working in Japan changed us, working with its people made us better.
Still, it was difficult at times. Getting sick was a frequent activity in the first year - all those new viruses and allergens put us in our local hospital a handful of times. Our doctor was an older man, in his 50s; he would dye his white, Einsteinesque hair purple to make his pediatric patients laugh. He and his nursing staff were something else; we ALWAYS felt safe and cared for. I couldn't imagine having had to endure illness without being able to rely on them.
As Canadians, Albertans, Edmontonians, we've endured a good deal of tragedy in the last year - Nathan O'Brien and his grandparents, Alvin & Kathy Liknes in Calgary; W/O Patrice Vincent and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo's in Quebec and Ottawa; Cindy Duong, Thuy Tien Truong and seven others in Edmonton just after Christmas. We've rallied around their families, helping, searching, raising funds. It's who we are. So helping out Maria should be a no-brainer.
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| via https://twitter.com/HumanRtsV/status/576851643167219712/photo/1 |
I do hope this petition goes somewhere - to help this out, I've taken a lesson from Kreiss and acted as intermediary to facilitate this message's dissemination: #helpMaria will be this petition's hashtag, I will tweet a link to the petition to Edmonton-Clarieview MLA Thomas Lukaszuk and Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgerber, both of whom have already taken up Maria's cause, as well as all of the media personalities who've done stories on her. Moreover, everyone I know will be receiving a link and will be asked to pass it on.
Something has to be done to #helpMaria. She deserves it. Please click on the link below and add your voice to make a difference in Maria Vanancio's life.
@jessl #NMN Let's #helpMaria Venancio get the treatment she deserves. https://t.co/oCk0SAa6hx … via @CdnChange
— Lisa Slywka (@LisaSlywkaUA) March 15, 2015
REFERENCES
Christensen, H. (2011, February 7). Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means? First Monday 16(2). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3336/2767
Kreiss, D. (2012). Acting in the public sphere: The 2008 Obama campaign’s strategic use of new media to shape narratives of the presidential race. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and change. Retrieved from http://danielkreiss.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/kreiss_actinginpublic1.pdf
Pratt, S. (2012, February 23). Injured worker wants to stay: Filipina says she's determined to retrain if she's not deported. Edmonton Journal, p. A5. Retrieved from http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Injured+temporary+foreign+worker+determined+work+again+allowed+stay/10834677/story.html
Weisberg, N (reporter). (2015, February 17). Quadriplegic temporary foreign worker fights to stay in Canada [Evening news report]. In CTV Edmonton (Producer), CTV news at 6 with Daryl McIntyre. Toronto, Canada: CTV. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quadriplegic-temporary-foreign-worker-fights-to-remain-in-canada-1.2239700
It's great to bring awareness to an issue like this. I am very happy and proud to be Canadian for so many reasons...and find stories like this so disheartening. I hope that petitions like yours can impact this outcome!
ReplyDeleteSigned this petition,hoping that Maria will get the help she needs. It is sad though to realize that her story is not an isolated case.
ReplyDelete