The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada Annual General Meeting

  1. Welcome – Jerry Nussbaum, President
  2. Review of the Associations events and projects
  • LILLIAN BORAKS-NEMETZ – Master of Ceremonies for 2022 Janusz Korczak Award Ceremony Oct. 18 2022

Lillian said that Korczak lit the torch for Children’s rights, and so the theme for Lillian’s introductory remarks was  “His flame burns on”.  Dr. Jennifer Charlesworth, Representative for Children and Youth, BC delivered the keynote address. And congratulatory remarks were provided by Hon. Minister Melanie Mark. Ms. Marks was the inaugural recipient of the Janusz Korczak Medal for Children’s Rights Advocacy.

The recipient of the Janusz Korczak Medal for Child’s Rights Advocacy was Adrienne Montani.  The medal was presented by Dr. Jennifer Charlesworth and Korczak Board members Dr. Anton Grunfeld and Dr. Christine Loock.  Dr. Loock was a former recipient of the Janusz Korczak Medal for Children’s Rights Advocacy.  Ms. Montani spoke about her work and gave a heartfelt statement of her gratitude for the award.

The recipient of the Janusz Korczak Statuette in recognition of Caring for Children in the Spirit of Dr.Korczak was Landon Pearson.  Lillian Boraks-Nemetz read a congratulatory letter from Her Honour Janet Austin, Lieutenant Governor of BC and Patron of the Korczak Association.  Presenting the Statuette were Dr. Charlesworth and Board members Jerry Nussbaum and Ron Friesen.

  • Lillian expressed her appreciation to Amanda Fenton and Sophia Nussbaum, who supported the logistics for the Award Ceremony.
  • HILLEL GOELMAN – Meeting with the Department of History

Hillel Goelman Ph.D. is emeritus Professor at the UBC Faculty of Education in Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education.  With his connections to the University, he was requested by Jerry Nussbaum to connect with those who may be able to assist in the establishment of the Korczak Chair in Child Well-Being.  He met with Dr. Richard Menkis and Dr. Gregg Gardner.

Dr. Menkis’ work focuses on modern Jewish history, ethnicity, historiography and historical memory, antisemitism, and responses to the Holocaust.  Dr. Gardner is Associate Professor and the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics in the Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies.  His interests include classical Rabbinic literature, Judaism in the second Temple, Hellenistic Jewish literature, religious ethics and law.

Dr. Gardner played an instrumental role in gaining funding for the Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics.  Both Gardner and Menkis are active in fund raising efforts at UBC and gave great insights in fund raising, negotiation with the Senate and other issues critical in establishing a Chair such as the Korczak Chair in Child Well-Being.

  • CHRIS LOOCK – The Janusz Korczak Medallion of Excellence in Leadership and Sustained Engagement in Social Pediatrics.

The Social Paediatrics Section of the Canadian Pediatric Society identifies recipients for the Medal.  The Section brings together clinicians, researchers, advocates and educators to share, collaborate and learn with and from each other. They follow the path carved by the CPS strategic plan, which identifies a strong commitment helping members incorporate an approach to social determinants into daily practice including the psychosocial aspects of patient care.  The award is for working towards improving children’s rights in ways that encourage love for children, listening to children, fostering healthy children’s lives, and building capacities in children, in the spirit of Doctor Korczak.

Progress is going well on this with the next meeting of the Canadian Pediatric Society in January when potential award recipients will be discussed.

This is a progress update from the Korczak AGM on July 5, 2022.

The Dialogues, co-hosted by the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada and Access to Justice BC, took place over six, 2.5-hour online sessions from October 2021 to May 2022, and involved over 100 thought leaders and influencers from different sectors, including young people and adults with lived experience.

The Dialogues have had important impacts for the Korczak Association and have supported momentum for interdisciplinary and intersectoral change to support child youth well-being in the family justice system.  There was strong relationship building across sectors, education about Adverse and Positive Childhood experiences, and increased awareness about the benefits of taking intersectoral approaches.

The Dialogue sessions laid the foundation for the Transform the Family Justice Collaborative that was launched by BC Chief Justice, Robert Bauman, in June.

For the Collaborative, the Dialogues tested the waters for interest, drew the circle wider – beyond the justice sector (with significant participation across sectors and disciplines) – and helped engage Indigenous people, in particular the Cowichan Tribes.  In fact, a follow up project with the Cowichan Tribes and the Provincial Court is being discussed, and the trust built up by their participation in the Dialogues has been a factor in their buy-in.

Another initiative that has emerged as a result of the Dialogues is the Health and Justice Alliance.  This arose from the relationship building in the context of the Dialogue process – between Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, President of Doctors of BC, and Lisa Hamilton KC (Law Society President).  The Doctor/Lawyer Alliance is bringing doctors and lawyers together to develop approaches that are beneficial for child/youth well-being at the interface between health and law within the family justice system.

In addition, as a result of the Dialogues, an Intersectoral Family Justice Community of Action has been started.  Ron Friesen attended the first session.  There were over 30 participants who were thought leaders and influencers from across different sectors.

From the perspective of the Korczak Association, the learning and the connections established through the Dialogues were exceptional:  four Korczak Board members participated at the leadership level (Jerry Nussbaum, Christine Loock, Anton Grunfeld and Ron Friesen). The Korczak Association can be very pleased with the positive impact on the family justice system in prioritizing interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches to child youth well being.  The relationships established will be critical in efforts to establish the UBC Korczak Chair focusing on intersectoral interdisciplinary collaborations to promote child and youth well-being.

-UBC Janusz Korczak Chair in Interdisciplinary/Intersectoral Studies in Child Youth Well-being (report by Ron Friesen)

This is a progress update from the report in the Board Meeting held on July 05, 2022.  The focus of this initiative is to fund an endowed chair in recognition of Dr. Korczak at UBC.

Early work on this project was connected to the Faculty of Education at UBC.  With changes in the Dean of the Faculty of Education and clarification of the purpose and role of the Chair, we decided to investigate further who we might most effectively work with to move this project forward.  Several meetings and discussions, with the support of Board member, Dr. Christine Loock and Jerry Nussbaum, led us to connect with the new Head of the Department of Pediatrics at UBC, Dr. Steven Miller.  Dr. Miller brought to the table Dr. Mariana Brussoni, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics (DoP) and the UBC School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) and also the head of HELP  (Human Early Learning Partnership) within SPPH.

HELP is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of children through interdisciplinary research and mobilizing knowledge.  It is a diverse team of over 40 faculty, staff, students, advisors and affiliates dedicated to a better start for all children and youth.  It develops long standing relationships with communities, organizations, institutions and governments across BC and Canada and is supported by guidance from an Aboriginal Steering Committee.  It gathers population-level data about the developmental health and well-being of children and adolescents between infancy and 18 years of age, which provides the foundation for research and knowledge mobilization.  It leads collaborative and inclusive processes that transform data and research into action, across both practice and policy and supports evidence-informed change across systems, institutions and communities.

We have established an advisory team with Jerry Nussbaum, Ron Friesen and Dr. Christine Loock as Korczak Board Members along with Drs. Miller, Brussoni, and Dr. Mathew Carwana.  Dr. Carwana is both an investigator and pediatrician focused on supporting children and families who have faced marginalization or structural barriers to care.

We are producing a working paper on interdisciplinary intersectoral collaborations to promote child youth well-being.  The paper proposes that the purpose of the Korczak Chair would be:

Together, HELP and DoP can establish the necessary framework and stimulating environment to systematically engage intersectoral experts, partners and community members in rich ongoing dialogues to develop a shared vision and catalyze interdisciplinary collaborations that can lead to meaningful change in the well-being of children and youth. The focus will be on developing high-impact implementation strategies spanning health delivery, public health, and education sectors, that are co-developed with community and partners to improve equity measures in child well-being.

Jerry and I are thrilled with the alignment between the work of Dr. Korczak, the work of HELP and the work we envision for the Chair.

We are moving ahead to finalize Dr. Brussoni’s paper in preparation for review by our advisory team and then for meetings with both the UBC Department of Development and BC Children’s Hospital Foundation to develop a fund-raising strategy.

Blumka’s Diary was published in Poland in September 2011.  It was written on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Janusz Korczak’s death and the celebration in 2012, the “Year of Janusz Korczak.”  The book is set in the orphanage – the historical one, “House of Orphans” founded by Korczak. The book’s main character is nine-year-old Blumka, a girl who through writings in her diary presents to the reader twelve children living with her at Doctor Korczak’s home. We learn about daily life, habits at home – a day of good deeds, the day of the first snow. In her book, Iwona Chmielewska seamlessly combines facts and fiction and in a subtle way and creates  Korczak’s world – full of love and respect for the child.

Efforts are on-going to find a publisher for this book for which the author, Iwona Chmielewska is a distinguished author.  Blumka’s Diary has been translated into French, German, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Hebrew.  Anton has had feedback that the content is too complex for North American children.  It was suggested that perhaps we should focus on the early adult category.

  • JERRY NUSSBAUM

– Awards and Bursaries

Jerry advised that Coast Capital Credit Union provided help with the UBC Interdisciplinary Studies course and also provided 5 by $1000 scholarships for participants.  The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada UBC Grad scholarship for outstanding scholarship in the area of childhood education established in 2016 will be awarded again this year.

A new bursary has been awarded this year through the BC Association of Social Workers.  The award is for an outstanding social worker.  The award is funded by Charles and Heidi Kux-Kardos in honour of Charles’s father and brother who perished in the Holocaust.  The Board was fortunate to have Charles in attendance at the meeting.  Charles reflected on the fact that he was still in his mother’s womb when she was arrested and separated from the family at Auschwitz.  Charles was introduced to Jerry Nussbaum through the Holocaust museum and came to be informed about Janusz Korczak, who he described as an educator and saint.  Charles is working to develop a film on Korczak and would like to see revenues go to the scholarship.  The Board expressed their sincere thanks to Charles and Heidi.

– Korczak Consortium and Korczak Digital Repository

Korczak Consortium was initiated in 2017 by JKAC to create a forum for Korczak scholars and practitioners to foster research, discussion and education, as well as international collaborations related to Korczak and his legacy. It now includes JKAC, University of Warsaw, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland and the Museum of Warsaw (which houses the largest collection of Korczak related documents).

Korczak Digital Archive is one of the Consortium’s projects. The archive is the first openly-accessible online repository honoring the legacy of the Dr. Korczak.  It is fully functional and serves as a global hub for scholars and followers of Dr. Korczak. The archive will allow access to Dr. Korczak’s work in an unprecedented way, bringing his legacy to bear on the problems and challenges of the 21st century. The archive is a unique online resource, making accessible for the first time in a single collection a wide range of Korczak’s personal writings and documents, as well as the writings of others on the subject of his life, activities and creative output, that had previously been scattered in archives and collections around the world. The repository is bilingual – available in both English and Polish.  It contains resources from archives in Poland, Israel and Washington US .  One of the early members of the group working on the Archive is Professor Andrzej Wroblewski.

 – Dr. Janusz Korczak’s Legacy:  Children’s Rights are Human Rights – UBC Interdisciplinary Studies 3 credit graduate course

This course is taught by Dr. Nancy Bell and Dr. Lauryn Oates.  It introduces students to the foundations of children’s human rights and offers interdisciplinary graduate students an opportunity to advance their knowledge by exploring children’s human rights’ historical, socio-cultural, legal, and institutional contexts as well as Korczak’s enduring contributions to improving children’s lives.  The course examines scholarly debates across disciplines, current issues, and implementation approaches, including those intended to remedy children’s human rights violations while considering ‘real world’ practices and child-centred, rights-based approaches to domestic and global issues across disciplines. Course content includes lectures, case study analysis, discussion, guest speakers, and diverse resources including scholars and practitioners, films, and readings. Students are encouraged to reflect upon children’s embeddedness within all aspects of society and how child-centred research, policy, and practice agendas, addressing critical societal issues, might take account of human rights and children’s everyday world intersections with the ultimate goal of improving children’s lives.

Dr. Bell advised that the students for this course were diverse and included those from Ghana, Iran, Turkey, China, South Africa, and Canada.  Many have been refugees and new immigrants and all have been working with young people in vulnerable spaces, are working on their Masters and PHDs and are interested in application of Korczak’s principles in Children’s rights and approaches to these issues.   There were also guest speakers from different disciplines and parts of the world including a Ugandan woman PhD in London who is head of the organization No Brides for Girls, focusing on eliminating child marriages. Dr. Ziba Vaghri, who was formerly with Human Early Learning Partnership at UBC also spoke.  She is an Associate Professor at University of New Brunswick and has more than 20 years of extensive research and international experience in the areas of child development, child nutrition, child rights and child health with a strong emphasis on the social determinants of health.

  1. Nominations to the Board – DR. NANCY BELL

Jerry Nussbaum nominated Dr. Nancy Bell as a new Board member.  Nancy has been a supporter of the Korczak Association for many years including in her work in establishing the UBC Interdisciplinary Studies program, as a member of the steering committee for the 2015-16 JKAC and UBC Faculty of Education Lecture Series, and her support for the Access to Justice BC/Korczak Association Intersectoral Dialogues on Child well-being in the Family Justice System.  Her areas of interest include Human rights, with emphasis on child and youth rights, socio-legal research and human rights, and social policy analysis.  She is UBC Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies/Interdisciplinary Studies.  She is also an Adjunct faculty at the University of Victoria.

Nancy was unanimously elected to the Board.

  1. ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 7 pm.  Thank you all for your participation.