Staging seniors' life stories |
Things were going well for Michael St. George in 2004.
The Toronto-based dub poet had just released his critically acclaimed third CD, Dubbin The Vibes, was receiving extensive media coverage across North America and the Caribbean, and was in the midst of a busy performing schedule.
But during this hectic time something happened that led St. George to re-evaluate his life.
"I was in Montreal with my wife for a music festival when my car was broken into," he recalls. "All my stuff was stolen -- my equipment, my wallet and even my wife's bag. We had to leave the festival and come home to take care of our credit cards and other banking stuff.
"A lot of the things taken could have been replaced. But I even lost a bunch of songs I had recorded for my next album and I lost my brand new guitar. I wasn't in a financial position to re-record the songs or replace my guitar. It felt like I was starting over from zero. It allowed me to really start looking at what do I do from here."
What St. George decided to do was put his music career on hold for a while and look for work.
"I had the opportunity to do some work with the United Way's Multi-Agency Partnership Projects," he says. "I got a job co-ordinating a pilot project geared towards seniors. The seniors lived in the St. Clair W. community and weren't accessing the programs offered by the United Way in their neighbourhoods. Part of the job was to find out why."
St. George, a qualified gerontology activity co-ordinator and remotivation therapist, found that one of the reasons was because of their culture.
"Most of these women we were working with came to Canada from the West Indies in the '50s and '60s as domestic workers," St. George says. "They came from a culture where you fend for yourself, not look for help."
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