Funding, shortages contributing to abuse of Canada’s education workers: unions

Story by Sean Previl • GLOBAL NEWS

A school classroom sits empty ahead of the school year in Kingston, Ontario on Wednesday August 24, 2022.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Lars Hagberg

Education support workers and the unions representing them are calling for more funding from Canada's provincial and territorial governments and more staff to be put in schools, saying both issues are contributing to the amount of violence being seen in classrooms nationwide.

The calls come as the number of violent incidents impacting these workers — which includes educational assistants (EAs), deaf and blind intervenors, child and youth clinical practitioners and many others — continues to rise.

Susan Lucek, the president of Canadian Union of Office Professional Employees (COPE) Local 527, says there were more than 4,000 reported incidents of violence in the 2022-23 school year "and that was only what was reported." In addition, she said they've already received 200 reported incidents this school year so far.

She said one of the biggest contributing factors was not enough staff in schools.

"Due to shortages, it seems like they're moving from one fire to another," she told Global News in an interview. "So a student is having an outburst, they go to help. They come back (and) their own students (are) not having a good time. They are pulled multiple times a day to help with personal care for students.

Video: NSTU president talks violence in schools

She said her members have experienced various types of injuries in the course of their work, such as concussions, and some have even gone to the hospital for treatment of injuries. There has been some sexual behaviour as well, Lucek said, including grabbing the breasts of female staff or smacking them on their buttocks. She notes not all this behaviour is necessarily controllable, but is concerning.

Lucek stressed that despite the behaviours being seen, her members continue to do their jobs because they love what they do and helping students.

"I would say that due to shortages of staff, not being able to meet the needs of students is I think the main problem," she said.

It's a similar story from former educational assistant Mark Wilkins.

Wilkins worked for the Thames Valley District School Board in southwestern Ontario from about 2015 until 2021 before moving west to B.C., where he now works as a camp director.

Video: Student violence against teachers is a growing concern in Canada. Can anything be done?

He said he had been bitten, kicked and punched while working. He also recalls incidents such as a classroom being evacuated due to a student flipping tables while staff remained in the room.

But despite the violence and even being told to expect it, Wilkins said he and his colleagues often stayed because they wanted to be there for their students.

"We're in it because we care for the children and we care about where they're going and our future and everything like that," he said. "But unfortunately, the hitting and that kind of stuff is just a part of it sometimes, which it should not be."

According to Wilkins, more funding is needed because while it might not solve every issue, he's seen it personally that more staff can help mitigate violence.

When the student who had flipped tables got an extra EA, things changed.

"His whole behaviour changed, he started working on schoolwork and ... he was so much more focused," Wilkins said.

Among the needs funding could help address is testing, with Jorge Illanes telling Global News it's impacted the wait-lists for learning assessments for children.

Illanes, the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3550, said the assessments help create "successful" student behaviour plans that help "pave the way" to give youth the support they need in school. This can include being able to provide extra staff to help support a student who may have behavioural or other issues.

He added that due to a lack of funding, the hours for staff are being reduced, the classifications for workers are being reduced — which could also impact pay — and it's leaving the staff still in schools overworked.

"So this is where we see those numbers increase of staff being alone with students, staff not being able to provide the services that mitigate the violence," Illanes said.

There is also the issue of violence in the workplace being normalized for education support workers rather than dealt with, Illanes said.

"Members are being told that it's an expectation of your job and also what you signed up for, which violence in the workplace is never what somebody signs up for," he said.

Last month, Global News reached out to all 13 provinces and territories' education departments to ask what is being done to better support and protect educators.

Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Quebec and Ontario each noted that funding has been committed toward various initiatives, including hiring classroom and support staff, and mental health resources for students.

Video: North Battleford, SK. teacher sheds light on school struggles with violence and mental health

Manitoba and Saskatchewan also pointed out that their schools must follow codes of conduct around creating and maintaining safe learning environments.

Alberta said in a statement that school authorities had access to “Respect in School” training, an online program focused on preventing bullying, abuse, harassment and discrimination.

New Brunswick said funding is provided to school districts for training, including violence-threat risk assessments, non-violent crisis intervention and trauma-informed practices.

B.C. also has programs in place to address violence, such as having safe-school co-ordinators who are to be contacted over individuals “continually causing concerns.” WorkSafeBC collaborates with education representatives to find the best methods of preventing or minimizing the risks of violence.

The Northwest Territories wrote that it has put in place multiple supports for student mental health, including a child and youth counsellor program and establishing school-based mental health positions in schools. A spokesperson also said it was working with education superintendents to develop a “profile of school violence” to help determine where there are gaps in services for students.

Nunavut said in October of last year that it worked with the territory’s Teachers’ Association to launch a violence reporting and tracking system. That system, from Oct. 1, 2022 until June of this year, has seen 245 violent incidents reported. Of these, 89 were student-on-student incidents, while 107 were student on staff. There were also 19 staff-on-staff cases, with one case of a staff-on-student violent incident.

In addition to this, there were 146 cases classified as “other,” which the Department of Education classifies as reports not involving staff or students, or the target of violence was not identified. The tracking system also identified that 42 incidents resulted in personal injuries, though it does not specify if it was staff or students who were injured.

Newfoundland and Labrador said it focuses on violence prevention through what it calls social-emotional learning and self-regulation "rather than reactionary responses." It also noted teachers are able to document incidents through its PowerSchool platform that school administration can access, but added that current data "does not seem to indicate any increase in violence incidents in schools in this province."

Yukon's Education Department told Global News it had put in place various measures including new policies in "positive behavioural management," and various mental health supports such as its "Mental Wellness and Substance Use Services," which it says provides free individual and group counselling services. It said it is also developing a "comprehensive" approach to support the mental health of students, families, support staff and "the greater school community," and in addition to school and clinical counsellors available, it is working to add school wellness specialists and First Nations wellness support.

Global News did not hear back from government officials in Prince Edward Island.

As governments note investments made into schools, education support workers and the unions representing them say it's still not enough and Lucek said policymakers need to recognize that "there's a problem."

"Bring back the human compassion," she said. "Understand there's a problem and then we can start putting together the puzzle to fix the problem, because it is a puzzle."

NB

Public health seeks chemicals of concern in soil after AIM fire

A review into possible soil impacts from the September industrial fire at American Iron and Metal's scrapyard will be finished by early November, as consultants check 12 locations in the Saint John area for possible harmful chemicals.

AIM's operations have been halted since the massive fire on Sept. 14. Several schools and businesses were closed on the day of the blaze as city firefighters battled a flaming three-storey pile of scrap material. Saint John residents were encouraged to stay indoors by the regional medical officer of health for hours due to the poor air quality from the fire.

In the days after the blaze, representatives of Port Saint John and the New Brunswick government formed a task force to investigate the fire, as well as past incidents and investigations, at the Saint John scrapyard.

Two weeks ago, the task force announced that consultants have been retained to study soil in community gardens for possible contamination. Regional medical officer of health Kimberly Barker told the city's public safety committee Wednesday that they had identified a list of possible chemicals for concern, and will be testing nine sites in the "plume" of the fire, as well as three equivalent-distance sites that weren't.

"We still don't know what the cause of the fire was, and that's not unexpected with such a complex fire," Barker said. "What we decided to do, with the consultants, is assume that it was an entire car that caught on fire ... (and) decide what chemicals would have been exuded from such a car fire.

"The chief (Kevin Clifford) kindly pointed out to us today that it was probably the equivalent of 10,000 car fires." 

The list of gardens sampled include Rainbow Park and Courtenay Bay in the south central peninsula, Shamrock Park, Crescent Valley, The Growing Place and the Rockwood Park entrance in the north end, Broncos Blooming and the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre in the east and Carleton in the west. Control sites outside of the plume were also listed at Dannell Drive, Harborview High, and the Samuel-de-Champlain field.

Barker said analysis of the plume showed that wind pushed smoke over the uptown area and the northeast from 2 p.m on the 14th until the wind shifted to blow the smoke back over the bay starting around 2 a.m. on the 15th.

She said that consultants CBCL Engineering and Environmental Services will be looking for chemicals of potential concern including "available metals," mercury and cyanide, certain chemicals associated with particulate air pollution including polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogen, volatile organic compounds and petroleum hydrocarbons.

Barker said that if the materials are found in the plume area, soil in the community garden beds may need to be replaced, with additional samples of the municipal compost site to determine if that's been contaminated. If the chemicals are found in the area not considered affected by the plume, she said that becomes a larger conversation with the city.

"We're really hoping that we're going to be able to demonstrate that neither the plume nor the control site have elevated risk to our vegetable growers," Barker told Brunswick News Thursday. "If that should not happen, that's an important question that will certainly need some in depth discussions with local government and the provincial government."

At the meeting, she added that public health is also working with the Saint John Regional Hospital to track hospital visits and checking other aspects of air quality. She noted that while the uptown area, because of industrial activities, has "never had a decent air quality, so to speak," it became elevated during the fire and fine particulate matter was "measured on a scale not previously seen."

Saint John fire Chief Kevin Clifford told the meeting that the Saint John fire department is performing its own after-action review of the actions and decisions made during the fire, including what he called a four-hour uninterrupted stream of radio communications.

Clifford said that 91 firefighters worked for 40 hours and 17 minutes from the first report of a fire at the scrapyard on the Saint John waterfront at 1:39 a.m. Sept. 14. Responders also came from Irving Oil, Atlantic Towing, KV Fire, Port Saint John and AIM itself, he said.

He said that there were two five-hour sessions speaking with responding firefighters, as well as those who assisted from Irving Oil, and that they're meeting with representatives from Port Saint John as well as reviewing text messages and phone calls to build the chronological record of the event.  

"I think this operation will be highlighted for years to come in terms of collaboration of multiple entities," Clifford said. He said the after-action review would be presented at the next meeting Dec. 5.

Mayor Donna Reardon told Brunswick News that the AIM fire is "probably one of the biggest major environmental events in New Brunswick" and that operations at the plant raise many questions about who's regulating and what's required for safety.

Committee chair David Hickey told Brunswick News that he wants "transparency and accountability" on the fire and that's why they had a provincial official come to give a report at the public meeting, saying it's important to ask for clear public health data to give those responding as many tools as possible to review the incident.

On Friday, the province's joint task force said the investigation and environmental site assessment are ongoing, and that Port Saint John is working on a structural assessment of the AIM terminal, according to a press release. Operations remain suspended at the site as the investigation continues.

- with files from Barbara Simpson

Andrew Bates, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Telegraph-Journal

Book Review: 'White Holes' by Carlo Rovelli reads more like poetry than science lesson

It doesn't take a degree in astrophysics or expertise on Albert Einstein to appreciate “White Holes,” theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli's latest book. But brushing up on Dante Alighieri's work might help.

Rovelli liberally sprinkles quotes from Dante throughout his slim book exploring the hypothesis that black holes eventually transform into an inverse white hole. It's fitting for a book that says as much about imagination and exploration as it does about physics.

Oftentimes, Rovelli's book feels more like poetry than a science lesson as he explains black holes in striking detail and the theoretical concepts behind white holes.

Unlike black holes, there is no proof that white holes exist. There are no satellite images of them. As Rovelli describes them, white holes are another solution of Einstein's equation, “how a black hole would appear if we could film it and run the film in reverse.”

In the book, Rovelli says he keeps two readers in mind when he's writing — those who know nothing about physics that he can communicate to, and those who know everything but he can offer new perspectives.

That's why there are no equations to pore over as Rovelli explains the nature of black holes and how time and gravity operate differently in white holes. A handful of illustrations, however do help in walking readers through these concepts.

The book won't turn lay readers into an expert on white holes or theoretical physics. But Rovelli helps readers grasp how important imagination is to seeing the universe in new ways is, for both artists and scientists.

“Science and art are about the continual reorganization of our conceptual space, of what we call meaning," Rovelli writes.

___

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

Andrew Demillo, The Associated Press

Disposing of a mattress is ridiculously hard. So is the wider struggle to manage waste

Story by Aya Dufour • CBC

It's a grey, wet October day at the landfill in Greater Sudbury in northern Ontario, and the hazy conditions have attracted colonies of seagulls and eagles in search of food to the area.

Standing on top of some 30 years worth of garbage, landfill manager Aziz Rehman eyes a pile of mattresses waiting to be handled by the trucks that process incoming trash.

"Everybody working in a landfill hates mattresses," says Rehman.


Aziz Rehman manages the Greater Sudbury landfill in northern Ontario. He has decades of experience in the waste business. 

(Aya Dufour/CBC)

As the trucks begin to roll over that section in an attempt to pack all the waste together and save space, the mattresses bounce right back.

Designed to resist compression, they are a machine operator's worst nightmare.

"I can see he already passed on them five times, but still, they're right back to the surface. It's really, really hard to compact them."

To make things worse, the springs in the mattresses often get tangled in the equipment parts and cause serious damage to the machinery.

But that's just one of the many complications.

Further in the landfill, staff dug four giant holes in the ground to measure the density of the trash.

In the sea of plastic and soil is the unmistakable shape of a mattress, taking up on average 400 per cent more space than anything else around it.



Sudbury workers regularly dig holes to analyze density levels in the landfill, to more easily spot where mattresses are buried because of how much space they take up compared to the rest of the waste.

 (Aya Dufour/CBC)

"The only option we have is to bury them within the waste," says Rehman.

He explains the discarded mattresses hold in leachate, a liquid that passes through the waste and contains dangerous contaminants.

Landfills typically collect leachate to avoid polluting local waterways. But when it gets absorbed into the mattress, it seeps back up to the surface instead of flowing downwards to the treatment systems.

That leaves a scar on the landscape.

When Rehman drives past a section of the landfill that's been covered with a layer of soil and hydroseeded, he can spot where a mattress is likely to be buried just by looking at the vegetation.


When sections of a landfill are closed off, they're sealed with a think layer of hydroseeded soil, which enables vegetation to grow on top of the trash. Rehman says the spotty area seen in this picture was caused by leachate that in all likelihood seeped from a buried mattress.

(Aya Dufour/CBC)

"We're looking at a grassy area, but there's one leachate spot right there," he says, adding it is typically a sign a mattress is buried underneath.

Greater Sudbury has about 163,000 residents who send, on average, some 12,000 mattresses to the landfill each year.
Over 95% of materials in tossed mattresses can become new products

A business case for a mattress recycling program is before Greater Sudbury city councillors this year as they head into budget deliberations.

"I really hope they'll go for it this time," says the city's director of environmental services, Renee Brownlee. "Last year, it got deferred."

She feels it's a sound financial proposal. It costs about $30 to recycle a mattress, versus an estimated $68 to bury it – that is, if you consider Sudbury's landfill space to be monetizable.

Brownlee says it will cost $200 million to open a new landfill when the current one reaches its maximum capacity in an estimated 25 years.

But the current local government won't be the one footing the bill.

Like many of the smaller and more rural cities in Ontario, Greater Sudbury does not have enough of a population to sustain a viable private mattress recycling facility.


The Sudbury landfill has an estimated 25 years left to go before it reaches its maximum capacity. A number of years could be added to that estimate depending on how successful the city becomes at diverting waste, says the city's director of environmental services, Renee Brownlee 

(Aya Dufour/CBC)

It has to ship everything some 400 kilometres south, which increases costs.

All the mattresses in Ontario that are thrown out land in a facility managed by Recyc-Mattress, the lone company in the province doing this type of work.

Company director Eric Castro says it's not a very profitable business.

"There's not a lot of money to be pulled out from an old mattress."

What has enabled the company to stay afloat while others closed down is technological improvements.

"Over the years, we've gone from a fully manual process to an automated system."

He adds 95 per cent of the material from a mattress can be recycled and used for filler material for industries like carpeting and insulation.

To make the project viable, Castro says, there needs to be a high volume of incoming mattresses, which is why the company set up shop in the Toronto area.

He says while the cost of recycling mattresses has remained stable over the years, transportation costs have not, which is dissuading potential clients in more rural areas from seeking the services of Recyc-Mattresses.
Who should bear cost of recycling mattresses?

Few Canadian municipalities and provinces have mattress diversion programs, and places that do tend to pass on the cost to residents directly.

In Toronto, for example, each house is charged $20.34 a year for all oversized items processing.

In Barrie, residents pay $15 to recycle a discarded mattress. Some residents of Manitoba, Alberta and Vancouver can expect to pay a similar price.

In Prince Edward Island, mattress recycling is paid for by the government in an attempt to save space in the province's lone landfill.

Ontario's approach, however, is rooted in the assumption that producers should be responsible for what happens to a mattress at the end of its life cycle.
Ontario 'abysmally' late in waste handling goals: researcher

Ontario's plan is to pass on the recycling cost directly to manufacturers using extended producer responsibility legislation that passed in 2016.

In its strategy to become waste free, the province was aiming to have that recycling fee imposed on mattress manufacturers by 2020.

In a statement to CBC News, Gary Wheeler, a spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, says there are no "currently defined timelines" for when its producer responsibility regulations might apply to mattresses.

Calvin Lakhan, a postdoctoral researcher and co-investigator of the Waste Wiki project at Toronto's York University, says the province is lagging behind on this because it does not consider mattresses to be a high waste-management priority.


Dr. Calvin Lakhan, a postdoctoral researcher and co-investigator of the Waste Wiki project at Toronto's York University, says that in Ontario, a lot of waste management programs 'have been delayed or dead in the water' due to administrative issues and 'complexities surrounding printed paper and packaging.' 

(David Donnelly/CBC)

"It's not that it's less important; it's just that the infrastructure and supporting systems to make a collection system viable are not there. Textiles are in the same boat."

Lakhan says the province is "abysmally late" in its waste management goals.

"A lot of programs have been delayed or dead in the water because of the administrative difficulties and complexities surrounding printed paper and packaging.

"We're still kind of caught in the 'how is the blue box going to work?' phase, which is putting other waste streams on the back burner," he explains.

Lakhan believes mattresses are a good reminder that waste is so much more than what we put in our garbage bins on a daily basis.

American artist Maya Lin to bring new life to Glenbow Museum

CBC News: The National

Calgary’s Glenbow Museum is getting a facelift and its new terrace is being imagined by famous American designer Maya Lin —  who’s behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Indigenous group wants Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose 2018 Juno over ancestry doubts

A REACTIONARY ULTIMATUM IS ISSUED

Agroup of Indigenous women is calling for Buffy Sainte-Marie to lose her Juno Award for Indigenous album of the year, after a CBC story raised doubts about the singer's ancestry.

"We invite the Juno Awards Committee to revisit this 2018 category and explore ways of righting a past wrong. All Indigenous artists in this 2018 category … should be reconsidered for this rightful honour," the Indigenous Women's Collective said in a statement late Sunday. 

The Indigenous Women's Collective, which describes itself as a group of mothers, grandmothers, academics and activists advocating to stop colonial violence against Indigenous women, (WHOMEVER THEY ARE SINCE CBC FAILED TO IDENTIFY THEM)

said it reviewed CBC's story and watched "The Fifth Estate" piece, released on Friday. It said it believes Sainte-Marie deceived the public about her origin as an "Indigenous Scoop survivor."

It said the deception allowed her to benefit from a false narrative that misled thousands of Indigenous people.

"We acknowledge that Buffy Sainte-Marie was traditionally adopted into the Piapot family 60 years ago under the sacred Cree laws of Wahkotowin. We respect the privacy of her family, friends, colleagues and fans, and their decision to remain supportive and loving toward her," the collective said in the statement. 

"We understand that traditional adoption comes with great responsibilities, it does not provide anyone permission to falsely claim Indigenous origin identity. Being adopted into an Indigenous family and community does not authorize anyone to speak on behalf of our all of our people."

Related video: Sask. reaction to CBC's Buffy Sainte-Marie investigation (cbc.ca)
Duration 2:55   View on Watch

cbc.ca    Buffy Sainte-Marie's Indigenous ancestry questioned

5:55

cbc.ca'I    know who I am'

2:56

The Canadian Press    Buffy Sainte-Marie says identity questions hurtful

2:06

CBC obtained Sainte-Marie's birth certificate, which says she was born in 1941 in Stoneham, Mass., to Albert and Winifred Sainte-Marie. The document lists the baby and parents as white and includes a signature of an attending physician. 

CBC said Sainte-Marie's marriage certificate, a life insurance policy and the United States census corroborate the information on the birth certificate.

Family members in the U.S., including Sainte-Marie's younger sister, also told CBC that the musician was not adopted and does not have Indigenous ancestry.

Sainte-Marie, 82, said in a statement the day before CBC's story that she doesn't know who her birth parents are or where she's from, but called herself "a proud member of the Native community with deep roots in Canada."

The singer also provided an affidavit from a former lawyer tasked with looking into her Indigenous heritage. It says oral history from Saskatchewan explained Sainte-Marie was born north of Piapot First Nation to a single woman "who could not care for her.''

Sainte-Marie has long and intimate ties with what she says is her home community of Piapot, northeast of Regina. Members from the community have said Sainte-Marie is family and dismissed CBC's presentation of the singer's U.S. birth certificate as "colonial record-keeping."

The Junos did not respond to a request for comment Monday but said last week that it had not seen "The Fifth Estate" show and had "nothing to provide."

Sainte-Marie has also received many other notable awards, including the Order of Canada in 1997 and a Gemini, now known as the Canadian Screen Awards.

The Office of the Secretary to the Governor General said in a statement that it's aware of the report about Sainte-Marie's ancestry but does not comment on the possibility of honours being revoked. 

"The Order of Canada advisory council reviews nominations and makes appointment recommendations to the Governor General. This same council can also make a recommendation to terminate an appointment."

The Canadian Screen Awards did not provide an immediate response. 

— With files from Kelly Geraldine Malone in Saskatoon

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2023.

Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press

Navajo sheep herding at risk from climate change. Some young people push to maintain the tradition

 

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) — Whenever Amy Begaye's extended family butchered a sheep, she was given what she considered easy tasks — holding the legs and catching the blood with a bowl. She was never given the knife.

That changed recently.

In the pale light of dawn at this year's Miss Navajo Nation pageant, 25-year-old Begaye and another contestant opened a week of competition with a timed sheep-butchering contest. Begaye says preparing to compete, which also required she practice spoken Navajo and learn more about her culture, brought out another side. It taught her to be confident: that she, as a gentle young woman, could be courageous and independent enough to fulfill such an important responsibility.

“We butcher the sheep because it is a way of our life,” said Begaye, who won this year's pageant and is preparing to speak about the importance of sheep as a cultural ambassador over the next year. “That’s how my ancestors were able to provide food for their families.”

That way of life is in peril. Climate change, permitting issues and diminishing interest among younger generations are leading to a singular reality: Navajo raising fewer sheep. Keeping hundreds of sheep, of historically prized Churro and other breeds, used to be the norm for many families living on a vast reservation that straddles parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. But today some families have given up raising them all together. The ones who do report having far fewer sheep, sometimes just a handful. Still, many Navajo shepherds say they will keep their sheep as long as they can, and some younger people are speaking out and finding ways to pass on the tradition.

WATER IMPACTS

Navajo, who use every part of sheep, became stewards of the animals that arrived with Spanish colonists around the late 16th century. They raised them for meat and wool and helped turn the region into an economic powerhouse that supplied local trading posts with the expertly woven rugs that became an icon of the Southwest. But over the centuries, violence and outside influences have inflicted damage on shepherds.

Beginning in 1864, the U.S. Army forced several thousand Navajo into exile during what came to be known as the Long Walk; they returned to destroyed homes and livestock. Some hid with their sheep and survived, only for the government to again kill thousands of sheep during forced herd reductions in the early 1930s.

Most afternoons these days, shaggy herding dogs encourage a flock of sheep to follow Jay Begay Sr. out to graze. The brassy tinkling of livestock bells rings out over a vast plain of dry grasses near the community of Rocky Ridge, Arizona, close to the border between Navajo and Hopi lands. Begay Sr. uses a walking stick to wind past pockets of yellow flowers, heavily trafficked anthills and the occasional prickly pear. Eventually the afternoon sun casts long shadows, and with a breathy whistle or two, Begay Sr. leads them back on the half-mile trek to their corral, the dogs loping not far behind.

For Begay Sr., his wife Helen and his son, Jay Begay Jr., this way of life is precious. But Begay Jr. has noticed his parents slowing down, and they have reduced their numbers, from 200 down to 50.

It’s a story familiar to many others in Navajo Nation.

“A friend of mine says, ‘You can’t blame people for not wanting to work this hard,’” Begay Jr. said. It’s harder now, he added, “because of the way the climate is changing.”

A mega drought across the Western U.S. has sucked moisture from the land, leaving cracks and barrenness in its wake. The next count of sheep isn't planned until 2024, but Navajo Department of Agriculture officials say the number is lower than the 200,000 counted in 2017. Adding to the problem is the long-standing issue of water scarcity on Navajo Nation, where roughly a third of people lack reliable access to clean water. The Supreme Court recently decided that the federal government was not obligated to identify or secure water rights for the reservation.

The previous Miss Navajo, Valentina Clitso, says she has seen the impacts of water shortages firsthand, including on livestock. During her travels as an ambassador for Navajo culture, she says people have voiced concerns about springs running dry, about hauling water across long distances. Less forage for the sheep also means families have to spend more on expensive feed in the winter.

COMPOUNDING PROBLEMS

Lester Craig, who lives near Gallup, remembers when his family had over 600 sheep. His mother would buy their school clothes by selling the wool, and she would weave, too.

Now Craig has just a few sheep and goats, some horses and a few dogs, including one herding dog named Dibé, the Navajo word for “sheep.”

Like Begay Jr., Craig worries about climate change. He pays more for feed in the winter and must haul water from a filling station in Gallup, about an hour roundtrip.

But Craig doesn't just haul water because of drought. The land where his family lives was contaminated in 1979 by a tailing spill from a uranium mine — he points over the ridge in the direction of the site of the biggest radioactive spill in U.S. history.

The windmill wells near his house functioned but had polluted water. For a long time they used them anyway, not knowing anything was wrong. It was clear, clean water, or so they thought. Now they know, and no longer use those wells.

To prevent erosion, a problem worsened by wild horses that have been allowed to run rampant on the reservation, the allowed number of sheep and other livestock is controlled by grazing permits. Craig has seen the erosion, and tears up thinking about how the contours of the land he once roamed as a child have changed.

Leo Watchman, director of the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture, says grazing management is the worst it's ever been on the reservation. Among other things, he cites bureaucratic inconsistencies between the federal government and Navajo jurisdictions and holdups on environmental studies that determine how many animals can be kept on any given area of land.

He says thousands of people have been waiting for years for grazing permits. Meanwhile, others have permits they don't use or trespass on land they don't have the right to graze on. Sometimes all of this happens amongst family members who live near each other — a recipe for land disputes.

HOPEFUL FUTURE

Meranda Laughter, who works at the Tractor Supply Co. in Gallup, says over the last five years her family has gone from 300 to just 10 sheep. Despite the sharp drop, Laughter thinks they will eventually increase their flock’s size, and that continued education and better management can alleviate some of the problems that have been stacked on top of the drought.

“We need to give time for the land to breathe,” she said.

For Craig, a big concern is that that some of the younger generation, including his own family, aren't interested in carrying on the tradition of keeping sheep.

That's something Begaye echoes as she describes what it's like to be a young Navajo. Like some other young people, she wanted to leave the reservation and experience city life. And for a while, she did. She went to Utah Tech University in St. George. But then she started to realize that someday she would want to pass on her culture to her children.

The experience of returning home and helping care for her grandmother, who has dementia, helped shape her choice to reengage with her culture. That led her to compete to be Miss Navajo, and thus help her community band together to overcome challenges and strengthen traditions like sheep herding.

“It just hit me,” she said. “This is who I am. This is where I come from. These are my roots, and I don't really want to change that.”

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Melina Walling And John Locher, The Associated Press

Tehran Police Averse to Poetry Billboards Campaign

October 30, 2023
Agence France-Presse

Traffic flows past a billboard installed on a highway by the Iranian capital's municipality, in Tehran, Oct. 30, 2023.

TEHRAN, IRAN —

Hundreds of billboards featuring evocative poems that have been installed around the Iranian capital are contributing to an increase in road accidents, police were cited on Monday as saying.

Tehran municipality has put up some 600 billboards displaying excerpts from the work of contemporary Iranian poets on overhead pedestrian bridges and flyovers across the city.

The neat calligraphy features the work of 104 poets and covers multiple topics, including romance, religion and society.

Prominent writers, including Nima Yooshij, Mehdi Akhavan-Sales and Hushang Ebtehaj, are among those whose poems are showcased.

Traffic flows under a billboard installed on a pedestrian bridge by the Iranian capital's municipality, in Tehran, Oct. 30, 2023.

However, a report by the state television-linked Young Journalists Club agency released on Monday said police in the capital were concerned about the road safety aspects of the campaign.

The YCJ report said the poems have been a source of distraction to drivers in the traffic-choked city because of their length and often "hard-to-read text," which "causes accidents."

Iranians are known for their love of poetry, a key component of Persian literature and culture.

"Billboards around the city should be short and concise, and able to convey the message with just a short glance by the driver," the YCJ agency quoted Tehran's deputy traffic police chief Ehsan Momeni as saying. "This type of lengthy text does not conform to the standard and causes accidents."

While hailing the poetry initiative as "valuable," a Tehran municipality official acknowledged that it would be "preferable to shorten the poems, as advised by the police."

Another official, Reza Sayyadi, said there were "no specific instructions on what constitutes the standard for urban billboards," but said he hopes the poetry billboards "do not cause accidents."

The campaign has also drawn criticism from conservatives for displaying a portrait of feminist poet Forugh Farrokhzad, known for her explicitly erotic work, who is shown not wearing a headscarf.

Wearing a hijab covering the head and the neck has been compulsory for women in Iran since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Municipality spokesperson Alireza Nadali said it had been impossible to find a portrait of Farrokhzad wearing a hijab, who died in 1967 at the age of 32.

Ironically, she died in a car accident.

Huge overspend claims at DR Congo's Francophone Games under audit

Kinshasa (AFP) – Financial auditors have arrived in DR Congo to investigate this summer's Francophone Games in Kinshasa, said the event organisers on Monday after being being blamed for vast overspending.

Issued on: 30/10/2023

The Francophone Games opening extravaganza at Kinshasa's Stade des Martyrs stadium © Alexis HUGUET / AFP/File

The auditors from the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF) -- the French-speaking equivalent of the Commonwealth -- will stay in the central African nation for five days after landing Sunday for a mission planned before controversy over overspending erupted.

Between July 28 and August 6 the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hosted the the Francophone Games in Kinshasa for the first time.

The international event in the impoverished central African country was considered mostly a success.

But DRC's finance minister Nicolas Kazadi on Saturday pointed to huge budget overruns, blaming the organisers for poor planning as well as changing the budget without approval.

The Games were originally meant to cost $48 million, Kazadi said, but ended up running to $324 million.

Isidore Kwandja, the director of the Games' organising committee, responded on social media that funds had been managed carefully and that the committee was "surprised" by the figure of $324 million.

The IOF had approved an operating budget of 66.9 million euros ($70.7 million), he said.

Auditors arrived in the DRC on Sunday, according to a statement released by the IOF on Monday.

© 2023 AFP

Record 6.9 million internally displaced in DR Congo, UN says

Escalating violence has pushed the number of people internally displaced within the Democratic Republic of Congo to a record 6.9 million, the United Nations said Monday.


Issued on: 30/10/2023 - 

Residents of Bambo in Rutshuru territory, 60 kilometers north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, flee as the M23 attacked the town on October 26, 2023. 

© Alexis Huguet, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

The conflict between M23 rebels and militias loyal to the DRC's government has intensified in the eastern province of North Kivu since early October, particularly north of the provincial capital Goma.

The UN's International Organization for Migration said many people who have fled their homes but stayed within the DRC's borders desperately needed help to meet their basic needs.

"The IOM is intensifying its efforts to address the complex and persistent crisis in the DRC as the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) climbs to 6.9 million people across the country -- the highest number recorded yet," it said in a statement.

"With ongoing conflict and escalating violence, the DRC is facing one of the largest internal displacement and humanitarian crises in the world."

The M23, which has captured swathes of territory in the east since 2021, is one of several militias holding sway over much of the region despite the presence of international peacekeepers.

The IOM said that as of October 2023, about 5.6 million internally displaced people were living in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, and Tanganyika.

"Conflict has been reported as the primary reason for displacement," it said.

In North Kivu up to one million people have been displaced due the ongoing conflict with the M23.

Independent UN experts, the Kinshasa government and several Western nations including the United States and France accuse Rwanda of backing the Tutsi-led M23, which Kigali denies.
'Storm of crises'

"As the security situation, particularly in North Kivu and Ituri, continues to deteriorate, movements become more frequent and humanitarian needs soar," the IOM said.

The UN's humanitarian agency OCHA says almost 200,000 people have fled their homes because of the fighting since October 1 in Rutshuru and Masisi territory, north of Goma, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC.

"For decades, the Congolese people have been living through a storm of crises," said Fabien Sambussy, the IOM's DRC mission chief.

"The most recent escalation of the conflict has uprooted more people in less time like rarely seen before. We urgently need to deliver help to those most in need."

The IOM said that on top of the large-scale humanitarian crisis in the east, other regions have experienced conflict, insecurity, and disasters such as floods and landslides.

The IOM said there was limited humanitarian access and a backdrop of security concerns.

More than two-thirds of the DRC's internally displaced people live with host families.

The IOM is involved in managing 78 displacement sites hosting more than 280,000 people, and is enhancing mental health services for residents facing psychological distress.

"But many more people desperately require assistance to meet their basic needs," it said.

Only $37 million has been received of the $100 million sought by the IOM for its DRC operations.

The organisation wants "increased resources to meet the most pressing needs of communities affected by protracted and repeated internal displacement".

UN peacekeepers have been present in the DRC since 1999. Known as MONUSCO, the peacekeeping mission is one of the largest and costliest in the world, with an annual budget of around $1 billion.

But the force is deeply unpopular due to perceptions that it has failed to curb violence, and the government wants MONUSCO to leave.

(AFP)