As part of our participation in #ShareTheMicNow, we’re sharing our platform with one of our most admired brand partners.  Interview by Mica Lemiski Eman Idil Bare is a Regina-born journalist, fashion designer, yoga teacher, and law student. She’s worked in national news rooms across Canada, shown collections at New York Fashion Week, and most recently, she’s launching a PR (Public Relations) Agency that will focus on protecting and growing small, ethically-run businesses. It may seem like a lot (and it is) but each of Eman’s endeavors plays into her life-long desire to tell stories. She wants to spread knowledge and amplify new perspectives, all with the goal of protecting the lives—and promoting the livelihoods—of people who have been, and continue to be, negatively impacted by systemic norms. Recently, Hillberk & Berk chatted with Eman about why a multifaceted career is central to her happiness, what good allyship means to her, and how Black Lives Matter is tipping us toward a revolution.  Pictured: Eman's designs debuting at New York Fashion Week, worn by all Black models. Hillberg & Berk: Looking at how multifaceted your career is, I feel like you’re living proof that you can be an expert in more than one thing. You don’t have to choose a single path to be successful. Eman Idil Bare: A lot of people think you can only do one thing! We’re all multifaceted but we don’t give ourselves permission or time to explore other things. When I worked as a journalist at Global National, people would say I was really lucky because, at the time, it was near-impossible to get a full-time job with benefits after finishing journalism school. I’ve worked really hard for everything—I don’t think luck has much to do with it—but yeah, I got this job that I was supposed to love. But it took up my entire life. I wasn’t happy. For me, happiness and wholeness come from connecting to myself. And I feel disconnected from myself when I’m only doing one job and exercising only one part of myself.  It must have taken a lot of strength, though, to defy that very mainstream, very pervasive expectation that you can only be one thing. It sucks because sometimes even my own parents don’t understand me or what I do. I constantly feel misunderstood. But I have a choice: to not like my life, or to feel misunderstood. When I put it that way, it’s an easy choice. Even with a lot of my really close friends, I have a hard time explaining why, for example, I’m suddenly applying to a Master’s in Fashion. But I don’t actually need to explain myself to anyone. No one knows you as well as you know yourself, and as long as you remind yourself of that, it makes feeling lonely or disconnected from other people a lot easier. I think women, especially Black women, are taught that we are selfish when we put our own needs first. But I think it’s selfish to ignore your needs. The people around you deserve you at your best, and your best comes from giving to yourself and then giving to others. What drew you to this new career in PR? I love journalism and storytelling but I’ve realized you don’t need to be in a newsroom to tell a story. I love small businesses, and I don’t want to work for big corporations that are run on unethical values. What I want to do is find brands that I emotionally connect with and help build their story in the same capacity as I would with journalism, where the whole point is to make people care.  I read in a previous interview that your diverse skill is in part a product of necessity. Can you explain what you meant by that? Growing up as one of the few Black girls in Regina, no one knew how to cut my hair—I actually had to teach my hairdresser how to cut it. No one knew how to do my makeup, either, and I could never find clothes that fit. I remember cutting things up from my mom’s closet—not even sewing, just literally cutting and tearing—and wearing them to school the next day. I also started making my own foundation, learning to mix the right amount of bronzer into foundation that was way too light or grey for me. It was never perfect, but it sort of worked, and I tried to make it seem intentional, like, “yeah, my whole face is supposed to be sparkly, that’s just the foundation I chose!” People shouldn’t have to do things like that. But when who you are is not the norm, you can advocate and talk about how unfair it is all you want but, unfortunately, people just won’t do anything about it unless it impacts them personally. I decided I didn’t want to spend my whole life advocating for myself—because I have other goals!—so it just became “shut up and get it done.” Who have your biggest inspirations been along the way? Nahla Ayad has been my constant inspiration. She’s a foreign correspondent for CBC and is probably one of the best journalists in the world. We have really similar stories—she’s from Winnipeg, I’m from Regina, we’re both the daughters of immigrants, and our dads both own small corner stores. When I started working at CBC, I got in touch with her and found out about a letter she wrote to the CBC maybe 10 years ago. It was about the lack of diversity in the newsroom. I was like, “wow, flipping Nahla Ayad has had to deal with the same stuff I’ve had to deal with.”  By “the same stuff,” what do you mean specifically? The conversation on diversity in newsrooms follows a repeated pattern. They say there isn’t enough Black talent, and so they actively recruit more Black journalists. But when they get these journalists, they say they’re not performing at a high enough level, which is insulting, but also they never look at the why. The why is that we’re not given equal support. If you look at how much money and resources news teams get within a company, and then look at who is on what team, I guarantee you’ll see a correlation between race and who’s being invested in.  I’ve been reading Thick (by Tressie McMillan Cottom) and she says that, coming of age as a Black woman academic, one of the thoughts playing on loop in her head was always “work twice as hard, work twice as hard.” As in, she needed to work twice as hard to be given the same opportunities as her white peers. Have you felt that way, too? Yes, but I refuse to work twice as hard now. Flat out, I’m saying no. The co-founder of my PR company—Ashley—is white, 41, and basically my mentor. But she keeps telling me to stop calling her my “mentor” because we are equal shareholders and there shouldn’t be a power imbalance. She’s the definition of what an ally should be. She uses her privilege in ways that benefit me. With her, I don’t have to work twice as hard.  Are there other ways you might define good allyship? I’ve often felt crazy when talking about racism. We’ve been socialized to normalize the white lived experience and to think racism doesn’t exist, and that police will only hurt you if you’re a bad person. And so if your experience doesn’t line up with that, you kind of gaslight yourself whenever you experience racism. There’s a lot of conversation—and I’m hoping this goes away soon—about people exaggerating racism or making “everything about race,” but the amount of stuff that I’ve gone through that is clearly racism versus the amount that I talk about it? There’s no comparison. I would spend my entire life discussing racism if I actually addressed it every single time it happened. But Ashley, my cofounder, carries some of that weight for me. She pushes people out of the way for me when I need her to, and she reminds me that I don’t have to pretend racist things don’t happen to fit in. That’s what a good ally does: they normalize your experience because it’s equally important. And when did it first become apparent to you that your race might make you vulnerable to experiences your white peers just wouldn’t have to deal with? I was always somewhat aware of racial issues, but my parents did a very good job of shielding me from it. My brothers and I weren’t allowed to drive late at night or go to the mall by ourselves until we were in grade 12. My parents knew it didn’t matter if we were good kids at the mall—people would still accuse us of shoplifting. But I really started to notice racial issues in journalism school. In my last year, I was writing a piece for Global National and working forty to sixty hours a week, all while going to school full-time. I was chronically exhausted. While I was working on the story for Global, CBC offered me a full-time job and my best friend in journalism school asked me, “do you think they only offered you a job because you’re a minority?” I was like, “you saw me acting delirious because I hadn’t slept in two days! Did you forget all that?” But she chose not to see that. I outworked her and I was a better journalist, but to her it was like, “there’s no way you’re better than me, it must be this one thing.”  We touched on this earlier, but you made a point about wanting to abolish the idea of the white lived experience as the norm. This might be a huge question, but how can we unlearn whiteness as the norm? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and it’s not only abolishing whiteness as the norm, but abolishing anything as the norm. It’s giving people permission to be themselves entirely. For example, how outraged would we be if we didn’t have access to clean drinking water, basic resources, and had to spend $20 on milk and only $2 on pop. That’s the reality for a lot of Indigenous people, but the reason this issue is not at the forefront of every single election, as it should be, is because that’s not a normalized experience. Their experience seems so strange to us and so we reject it, thinking, “well there must be mismanagement on their end.” We need to be equally outraged at everyone’s injustices. And that’s what I mean about abolishing whiteness as the norm. Because it’s not just whiteness. It’s also able-bodiedness, straightness, having middle-upper class income—all of it.     I want to tackle this current moment and what’s going on with police violence, Black Lives Matter, and the public response to it all. How are you personally doing? How are you feeling? I’m weirdly optimistic because I’ve never in my life seen this many people talking about Black Lives Matter in a non “All Lives Matter” kind of way. But I’m frustrated because a lot of people are still choosing not to care, and choosing to believe police brutality isn’t a real thing. Police brutality is the sixth leading cause of death for Black men in the United States, whereas the sixth leading cause of death for white men in the United States is Alzheimer's Disease. I’m also tired. My law school’s response to all this has been totally inadequate. All they did was send us a reading list. I don’t understand why a response from a law school would be to send a reading list when we’re the oldest law school in New York and the leading public interest school in the country. This is the biggest civil rights movement of our time and they’re doing nothing. I’m also frustrated that I’m not in a newsroom right now because journalists aren’t doing a good job. They’re focusing so much on things that aren’t relevant. You look at Canadian media and it’s like, “Does Systemic Racism in Toronto Exist? Let’s Talk to the Chief of Police.” That doesn’t make any sense! The Chief of Police is not going to say, “yes, we’re openly racist!” It’s just bad journalism.  I know there’s also a lot of frustration surrounding the fact that the Black community has been speaking out against racism for such a long time, and yet they’re only being heard now. Why now, in 2020, is racial injustice finally getting the attention it needs? I think because we have to pay attention now. I mean, first of all, people are bored. We’ve had nothing but pandemic coverage for two months. People are at home, and people are unemployed. I’m a huge history nerd, and this is how every revolution has started in the world—with a very high unemployment number, no hope of job prospects, and unhappy people. I’m hopeful in the sense that this situation is too big to ignore and it’s going to really be something. It feels like a reckoning. There are executive directors and editors-in-chief of massive magazines being called out and stepping down. That doesn’t happen very often. It didn’t even happen when #MeToo went viral in 2017. It does feel really big. It’s also trendy, now, for people to proclaim support for Black Lives Matter. I know the word “trendy” sounds diminutive given what a huge cultural movement this is but...  But that’s what it is. It’s socially unacceptable to not have something posted, but I don’t want empty words. This has been in the works for so long and Black people in particular have been reading about this for so long. We already know what we want. I have an obsession with music and copyright law, and Sony is doing this thing where they’re giving $100 million to up-and-coming Black artists. But in my mind, I’m like, you guys owe so much money to Black people you cheated in contracts and it’s way more than $100 million. Just give them back the rights to their music! My law thesis is about how the framework of copyright law has historically disadvantaged Black artists, so I know an abnormal amount about this. How about more locally, in Saskatchewan? What specific ways can people help the Black community there? We have specific Regina issues that we need to be talking about. Why in 2020 can I still not go and find a hairdresser who can cut my hair in the city? But you look at the beauty school and they’re still not teaching how to cut Black hair. And why can’t I go to London Drugs and find foundation that matches my skin? These are our issues, and this is where local people can put pressure on companies to do better. If you’re a teacher, think about what the curriculum is like. What are students learning about Black history? Because if it’s just in relation to slavery, that’s a problem.  I grew up in B.C. and, for sure, the Black stories we focused on in school were almost exclusively slave narratives. I know that history is crucial to learn, but isn’t there space for Black joy and other aspects of Black culture? Yeah, like why not read books by Du Bois? Even when we talk about slavery and the foundations of slavery in Western Aftica, we rarely talk about the Black experience outside of slavery. We didn’t steal slaves. We stole mothers and fathers and doctors and lawyers and community leaders and actual people with whole stories. In Hollywood, the most representation you get of Black people is in relation to slavery or the Jim Crow laws, and with that comes so much violence against Black people, to the point where that violence is normalized. To always equate the Black experience with oppression is not right. Sometimes, it’s hard to know what the most effective actions are to take in your own community, activism-wise. Do you have any tips for how people can practice activism in their communities in a way that surpasses what is “trendy?" Yes. Write a list of every way your lived experience is normalized—as a white person, a straight person, or whatever it is. Then, look for the counter experience for marginalized people in your community. That will be a good starting point.   Wow I really like that. I haven’t heard that approach before. I just made it up! I’m doing a webinar on what people can do that’s meaningful. It all comes back to feeling connected. For some people, posting on social media just isn’t for them and that’s totally fine. To my core, I’ll always be a journalist and so sharing information is really important to me. But for other people, having closed-door conversations with family or a boss can be really effective. There are so many ways to do this. I don’t like the pressure that’s put on people to do things the same way because that’s not going to make change.   I also hear that you’re writing a book!  Yeah, it’s the book I wish I’d had when I was finishing high school. It’s for women 18 to 23-ish, who are just picking out what they’re going to do in college or who are starting their first job. I had so many experiences working for the CBC where I thought, am I just bad at this? Am I not good? And then I left and realized I actually am really good. But if I’d had someone in that moment telling me that my experience wasn’t individual, that it was collective, I would have handled things differently.    Are you working with a publisher or an agent on the book? I was offered a book deal with an agent, but if you look at the gap between how much Black authors are paid and how much everyone else is paid, I figure I’ll just do it alone. I run a PR company so I can do my own PR. I’ve written for every major magazine, so I’m just going to self publish on Amazon. I’ll make more money that way, which I can then reinvest in other opportunities.   Do you have any advice for young women of colour? Or for any girls who feel like the cards are stacked against them? My advice is don’t ask for permission. We spend so long wanting other people to give us permission to be ourselves and tell us our experience is normal, but make your experience the norm. An example from my life is that, as a kid, I’d still go to school during my religious holidays, but I’ve since made an active decision to refuse to go to school on my holidays. I have this right and I’m exercising it. I’ve actually become a lot more demanding, but all I’m demanding is what other people get without asking.    Asking for what the majority of people take for granted doesn't seem like a lot to ask for... It’s not. But when you’re conditioned to feel like it is a lot, that’s part of making your experience not the norm. With my law school, for example, I sent my deans an email saying that the reading list they sent to students wasn’t an adequate response to what’s going on right now. My dean responded by asking for me to come up with an action plan for them. I thought, wait, am I getting refunded for my tuition? Because, essentially, I’m providing educational materials. It’s the same situation as teaching my hairdresser to cut my hair. I’m expected to do all this additional work to make my experience normal. But at this point in my life, I’m just asking for money for it. If I’m doing the work, I’m getting paid—or else I’m not doing it.   

When Jordan Guildford was fourteen, she began to see her mother differently. Her child’s eye was giving way to a more judicious, adult perspective, and with that came the understanding that her mom was not just a mom, but a woman. “My dad wasn’t really around at all, and I started understanding what his absence meant, as a woman, to my mom.” Without the support of a partner, Jordan’s mom had gone into life-source mode. “We had nothing” says Jordan, who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her mom and two siblings.“We often didn’t have food, heat, or hot water.” A lack of necessities meant her mother’s priority was her children’s wellbeing and survival. Her own wants seemed irrelevant.  Not wanting her mother’s sense of self to dwindle any longer, Jordan suggested to her younger siblings that, instead of using the $20 their grandmother gifted each of them to Christmas-shop for themselves that year, they pool their money and buy their mom some jewellery. Her siblings were in. “We bought mom this little bracelet that looked like leaves woven together. It had what we thought were diamonds but…definitely plastic!” she laughs.  Upon opening the gift on Christmas morning, Jordan’s mother burst into tears and left the room. “I thought we’d hurt her. My brother—who was eight years younger—thought we’d got the wrong one!” But after a few minutes, Jordan’s mother reentered the living room, hair and make-up done, wearing her best clothes.“She sat us down and told us that this piece of jewellery had reconnected her to being a woman and an individual.” The link between jewellery and personal empowerment had been made clear to Jordan. Seeing her mother transform in a matter of minutes, all because of a bracelet and the sentiment behind it, showed how true “look good, feel good” could really be. “It’s as if you feel black and white and then you put on a little piece of jewellery and suddenly you see yourself in colour.” Jordan carried this sentiment with her over the years, but it wasn’t until December 2015 that she saw the opportunity to really put what she’d learned into practice. At a dinner party in her new hometown of Calgary (where she now lives with her husband and two kids, aged six and seven) Jordan and her friends were chatting about charitable initiatives around the holidays. “I noticed there was a focus on initiatives benefiting children, which I think is 100% how it should be, but I’ve seen what it’s like for women, too. If the children don’t have much, the mom has even less.”  Fueled by the memory of her mother and the bracelet, Jordan decided to spearhead a jewellery drive to collect accessories she could give to women in shelters on Christmas. She called this campaign “Gems for Gems,” the intended message being that gems in the community would donate gems to the gems (the women) in shelters. “I had only three weeks to collect, and I had a goal of giving 25 packages,” she recalls. “We collected enough to do 436 packages in three weeks.” Central to the success of the campaign, Jordan says, was not door-to-door soliciting, social media spamming, or other pushy marketing tactics. There was only one drop-off location for the jewellery—the OrangeTheory fitness centre in Calgary—and the staff and members rallied, big-time.“It’s amazing what happens when people come together with a common goal.”  Fast-forward four years and Gems for Gems is a nationally-registered charity whose mission has expanded beyond the realm of crowd-sourcing jewellery and into that of domestic abuse education and prevention. “I wanted to be able to keep the momentum of Gems going year-round,” Jordan says, adding that she didn’t set out on creating a large charity; it just sort of happened. “It wasn’t me trying to make space [for myself of this charity]. I was filling a required space.” Gems still operates their annual jewellery drive (which has reached over 14,000 across Canada) but their outreach now includes a scholarship program and a series of workshops designed to empower survivors. One of the workshops teaches self-defence, and when it first began, Jordan noticed some recurring questions from survivors. Questions like ‘what do I do when I’m being cornered?’ or ‘what do I do when I’m bleeding and I can’t see through blood?’ came up shockingly often, and Jordan understood what this meant: women were planning on returning to their abusers. “I thought, oh my god, I’ve got to be able to do something to make these women feel like leaving and remaining out is an actual option.” She set to researching and discovered that lack of self confidence and lack of financial independence were (and are) two of the leading factors for why women return to abusive situations. Wanting to address these factors, Jordan added more classes to the empowerment series, which now includes workshops in financial literacy, self defence, resilience training, and psychological coping skills. The series is called THRIVE. “Women come into our workshops not being able to make eye contact with you, and then suddenly their heads are up, they’re leaning forward, taking notes, and asking questions. It’s incredible.” Jordan’s personal history as a survivor (she was abused by her priest as a child) has given her the perspective she knows is necessary to facilitate survivor recovery. “I have been grounded in the reality of poverty and abuse, and I want to create change for other people. It’s amazing to live a life focused on that.” Yet the process of operating Gems for Gems is not a healing experience for Jordan herself—nor does she think it should be. “I personally feel that if you’re needing to do something to heal yourself, you probably shouldn’t be working with other people that need help.” That’s not to say that Gems hasn’t had, and isn’t having, a huge personal impact on Jordan; it’s more that her trauma is separate and distant from her charitable work. “The stuff that happened to me was a long time ago. It’s part of what made Gems possible because it’s given me perspective, but I don’t have the pain with it anymore.”  Gems’ team members are expected to have a similar, forward-looking approach. “We don’t talk about backstories at all. That makes us very different in our sector. We are 100% here moving forward.”  Also setting Gems apart from other organizations in their field is the language they employ when discussing abuse. Specifically, they don't use domestic violence as a catch-all for varied types of domestic abuse.  “The reason we say domestic abuse instead of domestic violence is because we see violence as a point on the spectrum under the umbrella of abuse.” In other words, abuse comes in many forms: financial, emotional, sexual—all equally legitimate and all worthy reasons for seeking help. “Calling it domestic violence is problematic to me because, that way, many women who aren’t getting beaten don’t understand that they’re still being abused.” And women who don’t know they are being abused are more likely to stay in unsafe situations, sometimes to the point where things turn fatal. “Our scholarships are named after women who have been murdered by their intimate partners. And in both cases, the situation didn’t turn physical until the first and last time.” Gems is on a mission to educate and empower survivors, which involves showing survivors that resilience comes in many forms, and that there is no “right way” to act resiliently. Maybe resilience means leaving your partner and seeking help at a shelter. Maybe it means getting your nails done in the wake of grief. Maybe it means simply breathing, in and out, over and over. To Jordan, resilience refers to how you come back from difficulties you’ve been given. “I believe we all have the right to wallow and stay angry. But we also have the choice to not. And I feel the responsibility, as a people with breath in us, to take the life we have and make it as beautiful as we can.” Jordan’s daughter, Lily, seems to have tapped into her mother’s philosophy already, possessing a knack for de-escalating tension and making other children feel safe around her. “My kids, Lily and Gabriel, grew up in the centre of this charity and it’s changed how they are. They behave differently, they think differently—the things that come out of their mouths are different.” Jordan recalls an incident in which Lily was only four years old. Walking up to an older, bigger boy whom she’d witnessed bullying a smaller boy, Lily said, “do you see that? Do you see how sad he is right now?” She looked from the small boy to the big boy as if to say, did you really mean to hurt him? Taking his cue, the big boy walked away. “It just blew my mind,” says Jordan. “She didn’t get mad or call him a bully. She just went in and instinctively changed his perspective.”  Changing perspective is central to what Gems for Gems does, and will continue to do, as they help survivors transcend their circumstances. They are showing women that pain can translate to power, and that every single breath can be an act of resilience.  Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided

When Jacque Tisher’s first daughter, Acacia, was born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus—birth defects involving the spinal cord and brain—she knew her experience of motherhood was going to be drastically different than what she’d always imagined. As Acacia underwent thirteen surgeries in her first year of life, Jacque lived at the hospital. “Watching her struggle with life and come close to death in infancy was terrifying—it was such a different experience,” says Jacque. “Even so, I had the opportunity and ability to bond with her very strongly.”  Jacque—pronounced like “Jackie,” and named after Jackie Kennedy—knew she had a choice: to be bitter, or to make the world better. She chose the latter. “I’m very solution-based at living. If you see a problem, you come up with a solution.” As a new registered nurse planning to start her career in emergency, Jacque decided to change direction and specialize by becoming a pediatric and neonatal intensive care nurse. “I wanted to be able to help other people’s kids like they’d helped mine.” she says.  Working in a unit where babies with complex medical needs were born, Jacque became increasingly bothered by the fact that many children lived their whole lives in the hospital. (Back then, it was very challenging and in some cases impossible to take children home if they required life support or round-the-clock care.) Jacque often argued with doctors about what quality of life truly meant, advocating for kids to have a life outside the sterile, ten-by-ten rooms they’d been assigned. “These kids would have 65 nurses they thought were their mom. They grew up institutionalized because of their health needs, looking at a TV and never touching the grass, seeing the stars, or feeling the warmth of the sun.” The solution—or at least a partial one—was for Jacque to become a foster parent to children who would otherwise be confined to the hospital, and who lacked families of their own. Inspiring this decision was Jasmine, a little girl who’d been living in the hospital for two years. “I saw her every day when I came to work. I fell in love with her and thought, I want to take her home.”  But about a month after Jasmine joined the family (then made up of Jacque, her husband, and daughters Acacia and Victoria) she passed away. Adding to Jacque’s grief was the subsequent loss of two infant children of her own, both of whom had been born prematurely and hadn’t survived the complications. Despite these losses, Jacque’s desire to be a mother never wavered, in part because she has always conceptualized motherhood as an opportunity to care for a special gift from God—a child. “A child is never really ours. They’re their own person. We get the gift of loving them unconditionally, guiding them, being part of their life, and developing that precious life.” Jacque went on to have a son (Isaac) and fostered several more children with special needs, one of whom was Hope. But bringing Hope into the family meant advocating for in-home medical support so that Jacque could sleep through the night and still go to work twice a week. “All families should have that support. If you have a child on life-support or that has complex medical needs, health care should step in and help.” But 24 hours after Jacque got the support she asked for, Hope passed away. “I thought, this isn’t okay. So, I decided to become the voice for other families who needed care like I did and started Hope’s Home.” Beginning as a small home daycare for children with complex medical needs, Hope’s Home was originally run out of Jacque’s own home. Jacque wanted to change the reality of what it meant to have a child with special needs while trying to pursue a career. “All my decisions come from raising my little girl, Acacia, and understanding what it’s like to be a mom while trying to maintain employment.” With Hope’s Home up and running, it soon became apparent that Jacque had tapped into a huge community need: over the course of 14 years, Hope’s Home grew from a privately-run daycare to a multi-million dollar non-profit with 230 employees spread across caregiving facilities in Regina, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, and Warman, Saskatchewan. Today, Hope’s Home operates a number of early learning & childcare centres to support both children with complex medical needs and typically developing children. Along with medically-safe, Monday-Friday daycares staffed by nurses, early childhood educators, and developmental workers, Hope’s Home also operates several supportive living homes for children in foster care.  These live-in homes weren’t originally part of Jacque’s plan. “At first I wanted Hope’s Home to be a daycare and to offer some respite. I wanted kids to go home with their families at night.” But this goal proved to be slightly idealist—because not all kids have families, or even foster families, to return home to consistently. Take Hope, for example, whose mother’s circumstances and lack of ability rendered her unable to care for a daughter born with complex medical needs. “There are times when parents truly can’t provide care,” says Jacque.   There are also situations in which caregiving can become too big a task for a single set of parents to handle—no matter how dedicated, loving, or capable they may be. The Trudels, for example, are a family of five in which the youngest child, Thomas, has a genetic condition undocumented anywhere else in the world. Parents Shianne and Ivan were thrown quickly into a world of complex medical devices and admittedly scary drugs. Questions like “When should we give him morphine?” and “When should we give him Ativan?” became part of their everyday lives. Recognizing they did not have the capacity to care for Thomas while working and parenting their other two young daughters, Shianne and Ivan sent Thomas to live at Hope’s Home in Prince Albert. “[Shianne and Ivan] are still Mom and Dad and part of his world, but they recognize that we’re here to be an extension of their family,” says Jacque. Helping families like the Trudels is exactly why Jacque is so enthusiastic about her working life. “They’re a beautiful example of why we do what we do, and why our staff shows up to work everyday.” She is also buoyed by the memory of Acacia, who passed away in 2011 at the age of eighteen. “I always say to people: you have to know your why. So, why do you get up in the morning, why you do what you do, and why are you passionate about your job or what you do in life?” Acacia is Jacque’s why. “I think of her as an angel,” she says, adding that, as an organ donor, Acacia saved five lives after she passed. “She’s my hero. I would not be who I am if I wasn’t her mom.” Even with such a powerful why fueling her mission, Jacque’s work with Hope’s Home can be difficult—emotionally, physically, and even from a business standpoint, as Jacque is trained as a nurse and not a business expert. “I didn’t know it was going to be a 14 million dollar business with 230 staff! But yeah, that happened,” she says, as if still in shock over those numbers. “I have taken many leadership courses to mentor, lead and coach my staff.  Recognizing gaps in knowledge, I even took a course called Accounting for Dummies! Because I had to have a better understanding of my financial records.” Jacque is not the only ladder-climber in her family. She describes her mother, Jeanie, as an absolute worker.“Growing up, my family ran a restaurant, a bowling alley, a pizza place, and a youth centre where all the kids hung out,” she says, adding that, since her dad was a preacher, her mom took a lead in running the business—without any formal education. Jeanie later got her GED on a whim (she was forty and aced it) and, after her divorce, worked her way up from cook to Flight Chief at the Minot Air Force Base. “She’s just an amazing woman with a business mind, and I believe I have that same mind. She is my mentor and best friend.”   Jacque’s inherited business savvy continues to drive Hope’s Home toward new opportunities, but her working life has not eclipsed her individual wants and needs. For example, she’s working on a book, The Journey of Hope. “The story needs to be told,” she says, adding that the book is largely about Acacia. “The things she taught me growing up…she really was an incredible daughter.” Jacque is also getting remarried this year. She has been divorced for fourteen years (amicably so) but it’s only recently that she’s been open to partnership again. “I thought, never again, my whole life is work and children, I don’t have time for that. And then I met this guy. I thought, oh my gosh, this is amazing.”  Jacque is taking a no-big-deal approach to wedding planning. “I’ll get a dress and it’ll be fine!” she laughs, adding that the wedding will be held on her family’s acreage in North Dakota. “We’ll all cook the food and we’ll have family and friends to share the day with. I’m sure all the neighbours will show up, too.”  Her kids will also be there—three from her side, and three from fiancé Jason’s. It’s evidence that Jacque’s best talents are building families and being a mother.   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotography: Taryn Gibson

Not too long ago, Kirsten MacDonell was having a lunch meeting at Earl’s. She noticed her server—a woman in her early twenties—eavesdropping on her conversation, clearly interested in the words being exchanged over shared appies and salads. When Kirsten signed off on the bill, the server saw an opportunity to jump in. “Are you from YEG BOSS BABES?,” she asked, the same way you might ask a celebrity to confirm their identity. “I am!” replied Kirsten. “I love what you’re doing,” the server said. “Keep doing what you’re doing.”  For Kirsten, moments like this illuminate the true value of what she and YEG BOSS BABES co-founder, Kayla Kaliszuk, are doing. “It’s like, ooh, they’re into it,” says Kirsten. “Our work makes a mark in society, and we want to continue.”  When you think of a typical “networking event,” what comes to mind? Probably a lot of suits. Probably a large, nondescript conference space or ballroom full of business types, chatting stiffly about growth or returns or establishing a brand identity. Probably lots of grey. Lots of black. Lots of men.  This, at least, is the atmosphere Kirsten faced most often while working in sales for a large company. “The networking stuff we went to was 95% men. There weren’t a lot of women attending,” she says. “And the feedback I was getting from coworkers was like, ‘I was so uncomfortable going to those events because I didn’t feel like I could relate to anybody.’” Kirsten decided to create a space where networking wouldn’t be such an intimidating, dude-driven experience. As a “solopreneur” herself (Kirsten has her own photography business in addition to a sales job) she knew how hard it was to gather resources and grow a business without a support network. She texted a few friends, including Kayla, a fellow small business owner, and asked if they were interested in starting a wine club (a terrific way to generate interest). “We can go to each other’s houses, meet women who are doing similar things, and swap resources,” Kirsten said over the group text. “Kirsten sent us a logo and we were like, ‘this is awesome, let’s do it!,’” says Kayla.  Fast forward a couple years and YEG BOSS BABES—the outcome of the wine club—is now a thriving business with over 139 members and 1700 email subscribers. Their mission? To connect women entrepreneurs with the resources and community they need to grow and thrive in business. “I feel like more and more women are wanting the freedom to start their own business, but they don’t have friends or resources to lean on,” says Kayla.  That’s where YEG BOSS BABES (YBB) comes in. Led by Kirsten, Kayla, and additional co-founder Amy Bender, YBB hosts everything from vision board workshops to holiday mixers to seminars with award-winning women entrepreneurs—“yegsperts,” as they’re called. They also have a membership program. Perks include a space on the YBB directory page (a beautifully-designed online database of women-run businesses in Edmonton), event discounts, and professional headshots. “We find that professional photos really help elevate a business,” says Kayla.  Kayla and Kirsten run YBB with a distinct (and rare) lack of corporate stuffiness: it wouldn’t be uncommon to find a photobooth, cupcake tower, or gorgeous floral display at their events. They’re not afraid to be explicitly feminine in their branding and event curation because not only does it feel authentic to them, but it creates an atmosphere that women find appealing and welcoming. “The typical entrepreneur look has really changed and we’re happy to be trailblazers in that,” Kirsten says. “We can be professional but we can still be ourselves.” “I didn’t used to like pink but now I’m obsessed with it!” laughs Kayla.  For Kayla and Kirsten, staying true to themselves also means staying at home to raise their families. That’s partly why running YEG BOSS BABES is such an ideal enterprise for them both: they can be mothers and entrepreneurs simultaneously. “Even before we had kids, it was our goal to be at home and raise our kids,” says Kayla. “I’m so supportive of people who go to their nine-to-fives and have that career but it’s not for me personally.”  Kirsten feels the same. “It’s all about taking control of your schedule for your family,” she says, adding that integrating your work life with your family life shouldn’t be seen as a gold standard for all women. “Don’t let society define what having it all is,” she says. “That’s how you get in trouble and burn out.” “Yeah. Everyone has their own needs,” adds Kayla.  If Kirsten and Kayla seem in-sync professionally, you should see them as mothers. At the time of our interview, Kayla was weeks away from giving birth to her second child, while Kirsten had a two-week-old baby girl at home. “Before we started a business, that was the plan: to be pregnant together,” Kayla says. But the reality of near-simultaneous pregnancies was a little daunting at first.  “It’s not that Kayla wasn’t excited to be pregnant at the same time as me,” says Kirsten. “But from a professional standpoint, she was like, ‘oh no, what are we going to do? We’re due two months apart! How will the business be affected?’”   To their surprise, their dual pregnancies affected the business positively, in part because the demands of (impending) motherhood meant passing along jobs to other women and hiring new people to help run YEG BOSS BABES. “I think if the pregnancies didn’t happen, we would have kept trying to do it all ourselves,” says Kayla. “In order to grow a business, you do need to let go a bit.” There have of course been personal benefits to growing—both in a physical and business sense—in tandem. “It’s one of the coolest things ever to walk through life at the same time with someone,” says Kirsten. “Especially as close friends, and especially professionally. We just get each other.” Their lives may be closely entwined, but Kayla and Kirsten maintain separate, unique working lives outside the Boss Babes umbrella. Kirsten, for example, has a photography business. Her favourite niche is boudoir, which she loves for the unexpected, personal benefits it gives clients. “I love meeting all shapes and sizes of women and getting to know their journey with their body and self-confidence,” Kirsten says, adding that letting clients see the editing process is particularly inspiring. “Showing them unedited photos and showing them how beautiful they are is the point of boudoir for me. It’s empowering, really.”  Kayla has a creative side, too, which she puts to use in several family business ventures, including a soap-making business she co-created with her mom (Cherry Creek Soap Co) and her husband’s lifestyle brand, Flossy Bumz. But Kayla’s main focus right now is Boss Babes. “I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I like to start businesses, grow them, and then pass them off. I have a drive to be creative and busy.” Boss Babes is growing fast—in members and visibility. Kirsten’s celebrity moment at Earl’s is one of several instances of public recognition, a sure sign she and Kayla have tapped into an underserved demographic—women in business. “We’re trying to set ourselves apart from what other companies do. So we’ll ask people, what types of workshops do you want to see? And we try to bring that to them,” Kayla says. Paying attention to their community has also illuminated how strongly people, particularly women, are craving support networks that benefit them in an all-encompassing sense. “We recognize that entrepreneurs don’t just need professional assistance,” says Kirsten. “They need personal assistance, too, and so we provide mental wellness services and those types of events as well.” In other words, they’re refusing to view the Business Self as separate from the Emotional Self or the Mom Self or the Friend Self. All of these selves are integrated; all of the parts need to be healthy for the whole to function properly.  At the end of the day—or, more likely, in the wee hours of the morning—Kayla and Kirsten’s kids serve as their biggest motivational sources. “Now that I have a daughter, I just want to grow a community that looks exactly like what YEG BOSS BABES is growing,” Kirsten says, adding that it’s especially important to highlight this mission in online spaces like Instagram, where negativity often flourishes. “Putting something like Boss Babes out there into the universe—women supporting women in a genuine community—it’s really important. It’s the main drive.”  Meanwhile, Kayla is proving to be quite the role model for her son who, being integrated into her working life (he often accompanies her to meetings and sees her work from home), believes he is an entrepreneur himself. At age four. “He thinks he sells houses!” Kayla laughs. “He’ll be like, oh yeah, I got a lot of work to do. A lot of people want a house today.”  “He gets to watch his mom be a bad-ass! Then he goes to work,” Kirsten says. Kayla’s son’s real estate career offers solid proof that anyone can be a Boss Babe, if only they put their mind to it.   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Janelle Dudzic Photography & Nicole Constante PhotographyLocation: @homebyblondy

Kayla Ledohowski-Becker has been fighting expectations for a long time. As the daughter of a prominent hotel family in Winnipeg, Kayla has long been recognized locally for her last name—not always positively. “I was always being poked at for having a silver spoon in my mouth, which is not actually how I grew up,” Kayla says.  It’s a problem faced often by children of wealthy or successful parents: you become known as an extension of your family as opposed to an individual. And specifically for Kayla, the accusation that she was cushioned in privilege wasn’t accurate.  Starting when she was 15, Kayla worked as a server and hostess in her family’s hotel restaurant. Despite her tireless work ethic, she found it difficult to cast off assumptions that she had it easy. “At the time, those accusations would really bother me,” she says. Her frustration gave way to determination. “I knew I had to work a little harder. It made me want to prove myself.” Her frustration gave way to determination. “I knew I had to work a little harder. It made me want to prove myself.” And so at 18, while enrolled as a full-time student in university, Kayla left the family business to work in other restaurants, eventually landing a job as the manager of an Earls when she was only 20. “I love hospitality. I like talking and interacting with people. I think hospitality helps give you life experience through the people you meet.” Earls proved to be a huge turning point for Kayla and her career, but not in the way she expected. A group of regulars—who also happened to work for the Birchwood Automotive Group, the largest network of car dealerships in Winnipeg—suggested she come sell cars with them. “They casually tried to recruit me every time they were in,” Kayla recalls. Much like scouts at a hockey game, these businessmen had noted Kayla’s exceptional work ethic and potential. She had a bright future. They wanted her on their team.  “At that point I didn’t even know how to put air in my tires!” Kayla laughs. As a restaurant manager with a ceilinged income, Kayla worked a ton of unpaid hours to run the restaurant to her high standard. (Once, she even stayed until 4:00 AM to set up for a corporate event, simply because she wanted to make the experience special for her staff.) The new, potential job piqued her interest. “I wanted to work in a business that rewarded me for my discretionary effort.”  Kayla landed the job with Birchwood Automotive. Actually, she landed a few jobs, at several of Birchwood’s dealerships around the city, but she chose to accept a job as a sales specialist at Jaguar Land Rover Volvo Winnipeg—an exceptional place of work for the fact that it had a female sales manager. “That’s probably one of the reasons I ended up starting in the store,” Kayla says. “There were next to no women in forward-facing customer roles at the time.” This was only nine years ago.  Kayla had tapped into a phenomenon well known to women in so-called male-dominated industries: it often takes women to hire women. “People are always so drawn to what is comfortable and familiar,” Kayla says. “When all the managers are men, they’re generally comfortable dealing in a certain way. When you’re bringing in females it changes the dynamic.” This isn’t to say that employers should not be held accountable for outdated recruitment practices—hiring women and other underrepresented groups should not be seen as a risk, but rather an opportunity to explore new ideas and evolve the business. That said, awareness of comfort-zone hiring preferences gives female employers a powerful incentive to improve the gender distribution of their workplaces. Kayla can speak to this personally. After transitioning to the role of sales manager at the Birchwood Ford dealership in 2013—a decision prompted by her desire to gain experience outside the luxury realm—Kayla took an active role in reshaping what was, at the time, a bit of an old boy’s club. “That was my first role where I had a team and was hiring people, and so I was able to bring women on board.” The store went from having zero female salespeople multiple, all hired in part by Kayla. “One of those women is one of  the top salesperson at Ford to this day. She has been for a long time.” Kayla made other changes, too, including the introduction of new protocol to ensure all customers—regardless of whether they were buying a luxury vehicle—received a luxury-type buying experience. “They’re people and they’re buying cars. The treatment shouldn’t be different.” Her dedication to inclusivity in customer service led to a prestigious designation for the dealership. In 2016, Birchwood Ford was given the President’s Diamond Club Award in recognition of their excellent customer service. “It’s one of the biggest accomplishments I’ve been a part of to date in my automotive career.” Kayla is also a proud member of Women of Automotive Leadership, a committee founded by MaryAnne Kempe (Birchwood Automotive’s Chief of Human Resources) that creates support services for women of Birchwood Automotive and hosts networking events to encourage recruitment. “Don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that something is ‘male dominated.’ If you’re the person in the right role, you can change that.” Still, there are daily challenges Kayla faces as a woman in automotive. For one, she’s often mistaken as a receptionist by customers and store vendors. These interactions don’t bother Kayla; she views them as opportunities to educate. “I think these moments are really critical for change,” she says. Instead of taking offense in these moments, Kayla starts a conversation. “I want to wow people. Being the best version of myself allows me to show people that this is a changing world, and women are just as capable, if not moreso, than their male counterparts.”  If it seems like Kayla is well-versed in the language of human interaction and communication—that’s because she is. She has a Master’s Degree in psychology, which she completed in 2012 while working full-time in automotive. Getting her Master’s wasn’t motivated by a desire for a new career or higher earning potential (she loved her job and planned to stay in automotive) but rather a desire to learn and explore. “If I won the lottery I would be a career student. I’d get a medical license just for fun!,” she laughs, explaining that her “nerdy” tendencies developed in high school and never really dissipated. In university, for example, she studied religion purely for the sake of attending lectures with professors who were passionate about their field instead of money. “I’m not religious at all, but since studying religion doesn’t lead to many career options, the professors with Master’s Degrees and Doctorates all truly love the topic. Sitting in those classes was so engaging and inspiring for me!” Perhaps “nerdiness,” as a term, needs a re-branding, because in the context of Kayla’s life, nerdiness reads more like passion to learn and problem-solve. Problem solving is what keeps Kayla feeling most like herself on a day-to-day basis. As the General Sales Manager for Volvo Land Rover Jaguar (she returned to this dealership in 2017) her mission is not so different from when she worked in restaurants as a server: she wants to build relationships and work with a team towards a common goal. “What helps keep me feeling like Kayla, as opposed to someone who simply sells cars, is coaching my team. In those moments we’re not selling cars. We’re engaging on a human level and having real conversations.” Kayla is also helping start conversations outside the automotive industry—or, on top of it, actually. Last summer, a coworker and former beekeeper suggested they cover the roof of the Volvo dealership with beehives. Kayla was all in. “Bees are extraordinary pollinators and they’re so important to the general ecosystem. We wanted to start educating people about bees, and so we took a chance and put the bee hives on the roof.” The project, done in partnership with Beeproject Apiaries, was a huge success: there were over 70,000 bees on top of the Volvo dealership at one point. The hives also proved to be a talking point, generating people’s interest in sustainability and healthy living. The bee project led to further community action, too, such as honey extraction workshops and bee-specific teaching initiatives at inner city schools. “It’s all about making connections in the community,” says Kayla. “We sell cars, but it’s not who we are.” In other words, Kayla and her team are a far-cry from hackneyed stereotypes of car salespeople on TV: those greedy, grimy, anything-for-money men. Kayla loves selling cars, but there’s one term, often applied to her field, that bothers her: male-dominated. Men still outnumber women by a large proportion in the world of car sales, but that discrepancy is not something Kayla wants to foreground in talking about her job. “I have a hard time saying ‘male-dominated’ out loud because to me, if you want to do something, go do it.” As in, calling something ‘male-dominated’ sets up unnecessary barriers. “Don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that something is ‘male dominated.’ If you’re the person in the right role, you can change that.” Take it from someone who knows.   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided

Wearing a long black shift dress accented with a statement necklace, Rachel Mielke mingles at the Grand Opening of the newest Hillberg & Berk retail location in Calgary. A customer—one who has braved the 100-person line of people wanting to check out the new store—pulls her aside, clearly with something to say.   Rachel is no stranger to admiration-filled exchanges with customers. As the founder and CEO of Hillberg & Berk, her level of visibility is such that brand-followers often recognize her in public. “Social media has really become the main source of people’s content consumption,” she says. Appearing regularly on Hillberg & Berk’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, Rachel is part of the CEO-turned-celebrity phenomenon unique to the digital age. This particular customer has more to say than most. “I’ve followed the brand for 10 years,” she says, sporting a mix of new and vintage Hillberg & Berk pieces. “I love your brand and your story so much that I went with my husband for a special trip to Regina—just so I could go to the first Hillberg & Berk store.”  This is a first for Rachel. Her Regina-based jewellery company has seen her through some pretty fantastic milestones (a showcase at the Oscars, designing a brooch for Her Majesty the Queen, a partnership with Tessa Virtue—you get it, she’s made it) but to have someone visit the flagship store as if it were a museum is another level of wow. “It blew me away that there are people passionate enough about the brand that they would plan a trip around it.” The thought of Regina as a fashion or jewellery destination would have been unthinkable to an 18-year-old Rachel Mielke. Lack of a “scene” in Saskatchewan was in part why she opted for a business degree instead of something more artistic. “I loved fashion but I was aware of the reality that there was very little fashion in Saskatchewan when I graduated in 1998, and so my main focus was to make a business for myself.” Even if she didn’t think she would build a career in fashion, she maintained a desire to create, and to express herself through design, from a young age. She recalls spending hours in her parents’ basement, meticulously placing coloured pegs into her Lite-Brite board. “My mom would come downstairs and say, ‘why are you sitting in the dark?’ Turn the light on!’ And I’d say ‘noooo, it’s cooler with the lights off!’”  She was equally enamored with Rainbow Brite. “My whole room was Rainbow Brite. That character definitely influenced my brand and my fashion today,” she says, referencing the bold colours and gems now signature to Hillberg & Berk. The character was more than just an aesthetic inspiration for Rachel. Rachel’s goal to help women “sparkle”—through not only the jewellery she makes but also a variety of charitable initiatives—is a modern twist on Rainbow Brite’s mission to bring colour to the world. “I remember buying $300 worth of supplies and thinking it was a fortune!” she recalls. From those materials she made herself a statement necklace. “I put it on and thought, wow, this is really special. I want to do more of this.” Growing up in a financially-tight household, Rachel had to employ creativity, as opposed to a credit card, to realize her fashion goals early on. After digging out her mom’s 1970s sewing machine and teaching herself how to sew, she developed a knack for making second-hand look chic. “I started deconstructing my clothes and re-sewing them together. I was making fashion that I couldn’t afford to buy otherwise.” She also began making simple jewellery, but it wasn’t until after business school that she made her first luxury item. With money she’d saved from working multiple jobs, Rachel travelled to a specialty gem shop in Edmonton and bought a selection of Bali sterling silver, Swarovski crystals, and freshwater pearls. “I remember buying $300 worth of supplies and thinking it was a fortune!” she recalls. From those materials she made herself a statement necklace. “I put it on and thought, wow, this is really special. I want to do more of this.”  The requests for her designs began to pile up and, fueled by encouragement from friends, Rachel decided to put her business degree to use in a notoriously tough realm: the jewellery industry. The first hurdle to overcome was a lack of market knowledge, which she overcame through travel. “I went to every single place I’d read was an incredible source of craftsmanship until I built my knowledge of the industry globally,” she says. But the male-dominated industry did not initially recognize Rachel as a force. “People didn’t want to work with me. I was a start-up, so that was an issue too, but they certainly didn’t look at me, a 25-year old woman, and take me seriously enough to say, ‘hey I’m gonna take a chance on you.’” “I want everyone to feel what I felt when I put on that first piece of special jewellery.” Rachel learned to market her ideas with confidence and strength. “The key was finding people who believed in me. It was also learning how to sell myself, my story, and convince people that I was going to make it.” Over 15 years later and she has, most definitely, made it. Hillberg & Berk is a nationally-recognized brand with global ambitions. Their 31,000 square-foot office in Regina’s warehouse district features gorgeous chandeliers, plush furniture, and the bustling energy of a newsroom about to break an important story. Yet Rachel’s in-office presence is a far cry from boss-woman caricatures seen and mythologized in Hollywood. She’s no Miranda Priestly, in other words, and if you run into her in public, she’s more likely to gift you a piece of jewellery than demand a favour. “I want everyone to feel what I felt when I put on that first piece of special jewellery. But sometimes I only have what’s on my body, and so I give it away!”  Giving away jewellery is but one way Rachel is disrupting the pithy maxim that luxury is exclusive. “On a global stage, H&B is one of very few brands that is truly changing the narrative on how brands impact the community, but also how brands change what women think of themselves.” Rachel is redefining what it means to be a brand leader through her personal style as well. Sometimes she shows up to the Hillberg & Berk headquarters in ripped jeans, sneakers, and a cool t-shirt. Other times, she elevates her style by pairing a simple dress with pops of Sparkle. “I have learned to dress my body type and just stick to what works. I found a great dress this season and I bought it in five colours.” Her clothes and accessories reflect her mission to feel confident, not necessarily cutting-edge, and she hopes this model will inspire women to view fashion as a source of self-expression as opposed to a set of stifling ideals. “I don’t think society should be so prescriptive in terms of telling us how to dress, especially in the work environment. I love that we’re coming into a time where, as women, we’re feeling more comfortable defining our own personal style.” Rachel may be forward-thinking, but she still gleans wisdom from the past—specifically, from the kaleidoscope she had as a child. A large red tube with a textured baroque pattern, Rachel’s kaleidoscope was a source of wonder for her younger self but has since acquired a  philosophical weight. In her keynotes, panels, and workshops (most of which focus on female empowerment and its links to social change) Rachel often references the kaleidoscope as a metaphor for our lives, hoping to inspire a deeper sense of gratitude within her audience. “So often we focus on the small, insignificant parts of our lives. We all have challenges, but the majority of life is amazing—if we just choose to focus on it.” Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Provided At Hillberg & Berk, our dream is to empower women to see their own unique strengths, beauty and potential — what we call ‘sparkle’ — and inspire them to help other women see theirs, too.

Upon hearing her diagnosis, Deanna Ratzlaff began to argue with the radiologist. The idea that she had cancer was too far-fetched—it couldn’t be true. “I had a mammogram before and it was fine,” she said to the doctor, referring to the tests she’d undergone five years prior. Deanna had gone to the clinic that day for a routine appointment. She was 44. The mammogram was done out of responsibility as opposed to concern. “Yes, well…” said the doctor, showing her a set of pictures. “This is that mammogram, and this is this mammogram.” The images were completely different. One showed a healthy set of breasts. The other showed multiple lumps—breast cancer. They diagnosed her on the spot. “I always call that moment my hijacking,” says Deanna, now 48. “Because, at that point, life as you know it is totally changed.” Amplifying Deanna’s shock that day was the fact that she did not feel sick at all. “I was feeling amazing. I had been going to the gym five days a week, I had a trainer, and I was eating well.” Six weeks later she underwent a double mastectomy. “It seems like once you’re diagnosed with breast cancer, everything goes on high speed.” She adds that information overload and a barrage of unfamiliar medical terminology made it easy to slip into “yes mode”—agreeing to procedures and treatments without questioning them because you don’t know what other options exist. As a medical lab technician, Deanna was equipped to absorb and understand more information than the average patient, but she still found herself making life-changing decisions at a very fast pace. One such decision was to have her breasts reconstructed immediately after her mastectomy, an option she chose over prosthetics, “going flat,” or reconstruction at a later date. Her choice to have her breasts reconstructed wasn’t some profound gesture to reclaim an important part of herself. “I actually didn’t love my breasts,” she says, explaining that she chose immediate reconstruction for practical reasons: it would save her from the hassle of prosthetics as well as a potential future surgery. “And I never would have been comfortable with going flat,” she says. “I know lots of women are, but I always say I’m too vain.” In this case, “vanity” could just as easily be called self-awareness. Deanna didn’t want to live her life without breasts. She wanted to be able to fit into women’s clothes, the way she always had. She wanted to feel pretty. Vanity, under certain circumstances, can actually be empowering. As Deanna continued her post-surgery treatment—undergoing chemotherapy and navigating a circus of medical appointments—she began to look for a peer support group with whom she could discuss her experiences, exchange information, and share coping strategies. There was no such thing—at least not in Saskatoon. And so along with three women she’d met at a Skills For Healing cancer seminar, Deanna founded (and continues to facilitate) Breast Cancer Support Saskatoon, a peer led support group that provides people diagnosed with breast cancer an opportunity to meet and discuss what they’re going through. “It’s worked amazingly well to bring support and information to other women,” Deanna says. “It’s been a source of healing for me as well. Being able to share with people who get it.” That’s the thing about breast cancer: not everyone “gets it.” We may understand cancer as a horrible, life-altering disease, but only personal experience can bring a true understanding of how the illness uniquely terrorizes the mind and body. That’s in part why peer groups like BCSS are so important: they allow members to access community through shared experience, helping to relieve the sense of isolation brought on traumatic experiences—feeling like a foreigner in your own body, for example. “You look at pictures of yourself before you were diagnosed and you don’t even recognize that person anymore. But you also don’t recognize the person you are in the current moment. You wonder, who am I?” Losing pieces of yourself, both literally and figuratively, is an experience common to all breast cancer patients. “When you go through surgery, you lose your breasts and then you heal from that, and then you go through chemo and you lose even more.” Your hair. Your energy. Your ability to go to work. It can make a person feel utterly powerless, so much so that owning labels like “brave” or “strong” becomes difficult. “Everybody tells you have brave you are, saying things like, ‘oh you’re such a warrior.’ But you have no choice but to be brave. And you don’t really realize how strong you have to be until you’re thrown into that situation.” But what does strength actually look like when you’re sick? For Deanna, strength meant getting up everyday and applying her make-up. To look beautiful when she felt like crap was to take her power back, one brush stroke at a time. “I made myself look pretty just so I could actually feel pretty again,” she says. Tattooing her breasts was another way Deanna took back control amidst uncontrollable circumstances. “I just knew I didn’t want to look at my scars all the time,” she says. She began to browse different artists and their tattoos. She fell in love with florals. “I thought, wow, if I could have these tattoos and not see my scars anymore, it would be amazing.” And so now, instead of scars, Deanna sees beautiful flowers. “I always said I would never get breast implants and I never would get tattoos…and now I have both!” she laughs. Another thing she likely didn’t predict doing? Modelling topless. In 2016, Deanna helped bring an initiative of the Canadian Cancer Society called BRA Day (Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day) to Saskatoon. The event occurs every October in cities across Canada—now including Saskatoon, thanks to Deanna and her team—and provides breast cancer survivors and previvors with space and time to discuss reconstructive options with leading surgeons and plastic surgeons. One of the highlights of the event is the Show and Tell Lounge, where live volunteers display the results of their breast reconstructions. Deanna was one such model in 2016. The experience was a milestone. “I finally felt pretty again. It was like, this is me.” She adds that many BRA Day participants initially deemed her tattoos “pretty, but not for me.” But after these participants completed their walk through the showroom, they’d often come back and ask Deanna,“who did your tattoos?” In showcasing herself that day, Deanna was showcasing options, providing knowledge. Giving power back. Standing shirtless, she exemplified that beauty was still possible amidst illness.  Although Deanna presently has what doctors call “no evidence of disease,” it turns out that “cancer free” is a bit of a fallacy. “Once you have gone through breast cancer, you’re looking over your shoulder every single day wondering when it’s going to come back. I’m essentially cancer free but how do you really know?” This sense of not-knowing has given Deanna a new appreciation for her everyday life. “I don’t ever wish that I’d had cancer, but I am a better person now that I have gone through it,” she says, adding that she’s a more compassionate person since becoming sick. “I feel a lot more love than I used to, especially for others who are struggling. It’s not up to me to judge anybody. It’s up to me to love and accept them exactly as they are.” But sometimes the toughest person to accept is yourself. “It’s a struggle. You fight to get back to [your level of fitness] but trying to accept yourself is a process.” She adds that having the motivation to do things she once loved—going to the gym, say—is especially tricky. “It’s so difficult because you still remember what your body was like before cancer, and what you were able to do before cancer, and so you kind of beat yourself up because you’re not at that spot.” Yoga and meditation have helped Deanna avoid a self-criticism spiral. “These practices have really helped centre me.” They’ve also led to an increased sense of gratitude: “I try to remember that when I’m having a bad day now, it’s just a bad day. I get to go home and start over tomorrow. I always say: a bad day of work is still better than a good day of chemo.” Perhaps the best advice of all? Talk to yourself like a friend. “I always say to people—give yourself the same advice you’d give to a best friend going through the same thing. Once you start talking to yourself in the same way, your perspective shifts. You’re kinder to yourself.”   Writer: Mica LemiskiPhotos: Nancy Newby Photography and Tonya Wanner Photography

Karen Sherbut was sixteen when she ran away from home. It was January, 1975, and the day had begun somewhat typically: she’d had a fight with her stepmom, one that would need to be “discussed” with her father when he arrived home. The problem? “Discussion” was often a physical event. Violent. “He would come home in his drunken stupors and I could tell from the way the door closed whether it was going to be a good night or a bad night,” she remembers. “I had my hiding spots, but he always found me.” Later that afternoon, pencil poised over a math test, Karen began to shake. She couldn’t take it anymore. “I realized I needed to do something if I wanted to start living instead of just existing,” she says. And so when she came home from school that evening to find her father standing in the doorway waiting for her, she turned and ran. “I knew that every step I took away from that house was one step closer to safety,” she recalls. “It sounds bizarre, but it’s a common feeling for so many homeless and runaway kids—that the streets and its unknowns are safer than what you’re running from.” Also propelling Karen to run was the knowledge that no one else was going to fight for her safety. Although neighbours had previously made calls the police due to violence they’d overheard, no action had ever been taken against the abuse in her home. “Times were different back then,” she says. “It was taboo to talk about domestic violence and child abuse. Everyone turned a blind eye because, if they had to look at it, they had to do something about it.” “I realized I needed to do something if I wanted to start living instead of just existing.” Doing something about it was exactly what Karen did on the day she ran. It’s also what she continues to do now as the Co-founder and President of the Safe Haven Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to keep homeless and at-risk girls safe, in a stable home, and at school. One way they accomplish this mission is through housing at Haven’s Way™, the core project of the Safe Haven Foundation. A long term home that provides live-in support “parents” in the hopes of re-creating a loving home environment, Haven’s Way™ is about building a family out of strangers for Calgary girls aged 14-24. “It’s everything you can think of in terms of a healthy, functioning family. There are family dinners, homework, chores, recreational outings—all with a focus on goal setting and healing. We’re still pretty unique in the world in terms of what we do,” she says. That uniqueness hasn’t gone unnoticed: in 2002, Karen was awarded Global News’ Calgary Woman of Vision Award for her work with Safe Haven; and in 2019, Canadian Business Chicks nominated her for the Women of Inspiration Award. Yet she stresses that, at Haven’s Way™, the girls have the toughest job of all. “Once they’re here, they have to work hard to rise above their hardships. They have to build their own dreams instead of the nightmares they have lived.” Karen knowns a thing or two about nightmares. “But I don’t ever want to play the role of a victim,” she says. “I’ve had some bad things happen, but show me anyone who hasn’t had a tough life. I wouldn’t wish my childhood upon anyone, but I wouldn’t change it either. It has made me who I am. And I like me.” It’s a sticky summer day and I am video-chatting with Karen from what can only be called a dungeonesque setting. Although Karen’s side of the conversation began in a sun-filled, brick-accented, third-floor home office (a setting much more symbolic of the success she has cultivated over the years) the speed of the basement wifi is the best in the house, and so Karen has relocated to a seat beneath a labyrinth of vents and pipes downstairs. The fact that she has sacrificed good lighting for clarity of conversation strikes me as savvy, unpretentious. As she speaks, a trio of labradoodles vie for her attention. This is a make-it-work woman. Resourcefulness may just be what kept Karen alive as a sixteen-year-old with no home. After spending the first night alone in a bus shelter in downtown Winnipeg, she awoke to the chilly January daylight with an inner resolve to transcend her circumstances. “I knew by morning that I needed to figure things out on my own. I also knew I was going to be okay.” When I ask where that personal clarity came from, she shakes her head. “I wish I could pinpoint it. It was a strength I had within that I never knew I had until that night.” Voice cracking, she stops to take a breath. “I had grown up being invisible. To be very small was the safest way to be. You walk on eggshells constantly, worrying about what the next mistake is going to bring. I knew that morning that I didn’t ever have to do that again.” She was right. After that night, Karen neither returned home nor to the streets, opting to crash on the couches of supportive friends and family members—mainly her older brother, Mike, and a still-close friend named Linda. A particular dinner at Linda’s helped firm-up her resolve to stay away from her abusive childhood home: “There were seven of us, five kids and two adults, sitting around the table and laughing and talking and joking and loving,” she says, adding that, until that moment, love had been a pretty fraught concept, intrinsically linked with violence. “That dinner was one of the moments where I realized there was something out there other than what I knew.” “I wouldn’t wish my childhood upon anyone, but I wouldn’t change it either. It has made me who I am. And I like me.” Still, even with these new, positive examples of love, Karen was still part of a highly marginalized sect: the “invisible youth,” as in, young people who couch surf as a means to stay off the streets, who are homeless but do not typically present as destitute. Having a roof over your head does not necessarily mean solace, or even safety. “With couch surfers—the invisible youth—we don’t want to overstay our welcome. We don’t want to be an intrusion,” Karen says. And so come daily, nagging thoughts: where will I sleep tonight? Will I end up on the streets again? Is my situation my fault? Karen was able to keep these thoughts at bay through a combination of perseverance, tenacity, and self-belief. “I had this uncanny faith inside me that I knew I was better than what I had been told I was.” She also never allowed herself to coast. While in highschool, Karen held down multiple jobs in fast food and retail before transitioning to full-time government work—which she accepted with permission from her principal, since it required leaving school two weeks early. “I could only type twenty words a minute in a job demanded eighty,” she says. “But my bosses saw something in me.” That something was potential, promise. Also: heart. Karen earned four promotions in just six years while working for the government, often feeling in-over-her-head but undeterred. “I say I graduated with a Master’s from the School of Hard Knocks because that’s how I learned,” she laughs. “There’s that saying: life is our toughest teacher because she gives you the test before the lesson.” Ever-ambitious, Karen left the security of government work to explore the modelling industry, both behind-the-scenes and in front of the camera. Her interest in modelling lead her to discover a talent for marketing and retail, and she eventually became the National Director of Marketing for a shopping centre development company in 1988. Although Karen has largely stepped back from her career in marketing, she still provides advisory support within her husband’s company, Britgary Properties, where she is the Vice President. But a more apt title for Karen might be Full-Time Philanthropist, as she is constantly working to improve the Safe Haven Foundation and its initiatives, which, in addition to the Haven’s Way™ home, include a scholarship fund program, an alumni program for former residents, and a therapeutic recreation fund program. Karen’s work with Safe Haven has no personal monetary benefit—her role is completely volunteer—but when you’re talking about a charity that has provided a home to over eighty girls since its inception in 1996, assigning a dollar sign to the “benefits,” for Karen, doesn’t quite seem right. To Karen, “benefits” look more like last year’s Christmas: a group of 56 people—a combination of Haven’s Way™ residents, staff, and alumni—all gathered together at their community hall to celebrate the holidays. “A programming team member’s husband came up to me, put his arm around and said, ‘look at what you’ve created.’ And I said, ‘no, look at what we’ve created.’” Speaking of we. That’s precisely how Safe Haven got started: with we. During a lunch date with her now-husband—John, a man she calls her “everything”—a question came up: what did Karen wish she’d had, support-wise, growing up? A lightbulb went off. What followed was a period of frantic napkin-scribbling in which Karen and John laid the initial plans for Haven’s Way™. Afterwards, they took the napkins—tear-stained, wine-stained—to their lawyer’s office to get the process underway. “So really, all we need to do is raise three-quarters of a million dollars, buy some land, build a house, find a couple houseparents, and we’re done!,” John had said with naive, no-big-deal confidence. “I want to share my story. I want to give hope to others like me, because there are so many. The world doesn’t owe us—but we owe the world. I truly believe that.” Less than a year later, that seemingly-impossible to-do list had become a reality. The doors opened. The first girl walked in, ready to change her life. Along with her husband and the Haven’s Way™ community, Karen draws constant inspiration from her four children, three of whom are technically step-children, though Karen doesn’t distinguish them as such. “I feel it’s an honor to have four kids,” she says. “And because of how I grew up, that connotation of a step-mother just doesn’t sit well with me.” When I ask about her plans for the future, Karen says she’d like to write a book. “I want to share my story. I want to give hope to others like me, because there are so many. The world doesn’t owe us—but we owe the world. I truly believe that.” As for her immediate plans? A visit to her youngest son—Michael, 22, who is on Safe Haven’s Board of Directors—is on the horizon. Karen is giddy over the prospect of seeing her son. “The longest I’ve gone without seeing him is forty-two days!” she says with a laugh. “He’s been my greatest teacher in life, and my brightest light. I am so blessed.” Writing: Mica Lemiski

Over her twenty-year career as a professional ballet dancer, Tara Birtwhistle has seen many high-points. And while “high points” may be quite common in ballet—an art form marked by its fair share of tip-toes—Birtwhistle’s own peaks have placed her among royals. Literally. She has danced in front of Her Majesty the Queen, who awarded her with a Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and a Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. She has performed alongside Julie Andrews (also royalty, if you ask me), Christopher Plummer, and opera powerhouse Andrea Bocelli. She has even won a Gemini Award—Canada’s version of an Emmy—for her stand-out performance in the film adaptation of The Magic Flute (2005). “Dance was a calling to me, but I had kind of a love-hate relationship with it because I loved rehearsing but it was hard to go onstage.” Watching her dance, those accolades aren’t hard to believe. In the CBC film Dracula: Pages From A Virgin’s Diary, Birtwhistle sails across the set on pointed toe, cutting through fog, seemingly unaffected by gravity. She is strong, feminine, a goddess in chiffon. It’s no wonder Maclean’s once named her “One of 100 Young Canadians to Watch in the New Millennium.” Birtwhistle has since retired from the stage, but as the Associate Artistic Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet—a company she’s been with for over 30 years—her passion for dance and the RWB remains unwavering. “In the international ballet world, we’re considered one of the top-tier companies.” She adds that the RWB, which will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year, is the oldest continually running company in North America. “We’re compact, and we’ve built [our ballets] so that we can bring them on tour. We’re ambassadors of Canada.” The RWB is also a leader in women’s empowerment. “We have many women directors within our organization. Everyone communicates. Because of the atmosphere we create here, everyone moves together, in the same direction.” In other words, smooth choreography is a must. They’re dancers, after all. “In the dance world, you get to work with so many great people! Choreographers, musicians, costume designers—all of these people are part of the tapestry of who I am.” In terms of her origin story, Birtwhistle says she was “born and bred” in the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. “I moved here when I was 14 years old to train with the Professional School. Then I went right into the company when I was 19.” She was promoted to soloist in 1995 and became a principal dancer in 2000. “I’ve had a huge career. I’ve travelled all over the world. [Professional dancing] is a very fulfilling career, but it’s very challenging. It’s competitive. You tackle a lot.” Helping her tackle those high barres—literal and figurative—was prima ballerina Evelyn Hart. Birtwhistle went from looking up to Hart as a student, to working directly with her as a dancer. “She really mentored me throughout my career. I was very lucky.” Birtwhistle is also very grateful to André Lewis, Artistic Director and CEO of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. “I’ve been working with him for 30 years. He has really supported me in all of my endeavors.” Birtwhistle acknowledges the difference it made, having people around who lifted her up. “I never felt like I was ‘destined’ to do things; the pathways just opened.” She adds that her daily “lifts”—those boosts of confidence from her surrounding community—enabled her to take those pathways. “In the dance world, you get to work with so many great people! Choreographers, musicians, costume designers—all of these people are part of the tapestry of who I am.” Birtwhistle’s career didn’t come without significant challenges, including a struggle with stage fright. “Dance was a calling to me, but I had kind of a love-hate relationship with it because I loved rehearsing but it was hard to go onstage.” Her simultaneous love and fear of performance led to a cognitive spiral: knowing the audience had come specifically to see her only ramped up her fear of failure, making it harder and harder to take those first, featherlike steps in front of the crowd. She became depressed. “It was a few years of not feeling good about myself.” Ever proactive, she gathered a support system of people close to her and worked with a sports psychologist. “We did a lot of meditation, and mantra meditation,” she says, and although Birtwhistle never outright conquered her stage fright (like most afflictions, stage fright is managed, not mastered) she was able to make peace with it. “Almost like once I saw the stage fright as not the enemy any more, I was able to handle it better.” “If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, that is disempowering. I feel most empowered when I am myself.” Motherhood brought challenges, too. After having her first child, Birtwhistle realized she could no longer dance at a level she found satisfying. “By this time, I was closer to 40. My body wasn’t repairing as fast.” There were mental hurdles, too. Parenting drained her energy to the point where life on stage just wasn’t an option. She decided to retire. “The saying goes that ‘a dancer dies twice’ because when you step off the stage, you lose your identity. Oftentimes, people grieve about it.” But Birtwhistle found a new way to incorporate dance into her identity: “I told my director that I was going to retire, and that I wanted to take on more artistic coaching.” Her proactive approach allowed her to plan her final performances, something that few professional dancers get to do. “Because of my choice, I felt really good about stepping off the stage. I was ready, and I felt very fulfilled.” “I want [my children] to know that they can pursue what they love to do, and you don’t have to give up everything to do that.” Birtwhistle chose the ballet The Ecstasy of Rita Joe for her farewell performance. From Alison Mayes, of the Winnipeg Free Press: “By choosing to bow out with Rita Joe, Birtwhistle is paying tribute to RWB’s long history of cultural significance. She has also chosen not to pirouette through a fairy tale, but to play a human being whose tragedy is universal. In that sense, she is leaving the stage by reminding us of ballet’s potential.” Ballet’s potential, of course, is not limited to its artistic value. As a pursuit, dancing demands tremendous work ethic, and Birtwhistle draws parallels between training as a dancer and becoming a leader. “For our Professional School, a lot of students leave home to start training. They have to be in charge of whatever they’re doing, so they can perform at their best,” she says. This early independence means that, even if dancers don’t make it professionally, they will still develop skills that other kids may not, such as self-care and ownership of their education and career. “If you can hire a ballet dancer, you should! Their work ethic is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone. Even if you’re at the top of your game, you’re constantly working at your craft.” As for Birtwhistle, her stand-out qualities aren’t limited to a fierce work ethic. She is wonderfully self-assured, curating her life according to what she likes as opposed to what’s popular. “I was always an individual. I always had short hair. I had tattoos before tattoos were a thing,” she says. Birtwhistle also hasn’t let the competitive nature of ballet mold her into an aggressive or conflict-driven person. “I don’t like competition at all! I hate it!” she says, adding that “you be you” is a mantra she’d like young dancers to internalize. “Be generous in your spirit, your physicality, your character, but remember that it’s you onstage. Every single dancer in this company has something special to add to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet,” she says, emphasizing that good things can happen when dancers choose to focus on developing their artistry as opposed to blindly chasing lead roles. “In Cinderella, for instance, I played the Wicked Stepmother. It was a 50’s theme and we kept my short hair!” Her trademark cropped ‘do set a new trend: when the Royal Winnipeg Ballet performs Cinderella these days, a short, pixie-cut wig is standard for the role—proof that individuality inspires. “I was always an individual. I always had short hair. I had tattoos before tattoos were a thing.” Since retiring from the stage, Birtwhistle has discovered a love of running. Marathons, even. Along with the community benefits and meditative aspects of the sport, Birtwhistle also loves that, unlike ballet, completing a marathon is an accomplishment that belongs solely to her and not the public. “As a dancer you always leave a bit of yourself on the stage for the audience. With running, it’s just me and the pavement.” In terms of how she “does it all”—as in, how she allocates time between work, family, and running literally hundreds of kilometres—Birtwhistle doesn’t exactly believe in “balance,” and she’s wary of falling into the mom-guilt trap. “My husband is a principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, so we travel away from our children. For me, I don’t call it balance. I can’t give equal time to my children, and to work. It’s never quite balanced. What works for me is being ok with the imbalance.” She recognizes a give and take: sometimes she can spend more time with her children and less at work, and vice versa. “I want [my children] to know that they can pursue what they love to do, and you don’t have to give up everything to do that.” “Be generous in your spirit, your physicality, your character, but remember that it’s you onstage.” Through her life and career, Birtwhistle has gleaned empowerment through kindness, good listenership, and resistance to conformity. “If you’re trying to be someone you’re not, that is disempowering. I feel most empowered when I am myself.” Writing: Stacy McIntosh Editing: Mica Lemiski Images: Supplied