Simone Hoedel's interviews and profiles

Writings: interviews and profiles

• An interview and article on Libby Davies the year she ran for mayor.
• Chester Piontek worked on the lathe at Leon Manufacturing in Yorkton. I interviewed him for the staff newsletter.
• I interviewed Archbishop Exner of Vancouver about the issue of child sexual abuse and the church's response to the abuse scandal.
• I interviewed and profiled Collins Okeny, a refugee from Sudan, for the staff newsletter at Leon Manufacturing.
• I interviewed Andrea Hemsley, winner of the Clarke Lewis Scholarship Award, for the SAASE newsletter. 

Simone's CUSO application

I have always been interested in public service and helping those in need. The seeds of this outlook of caring for our fellow human beings may have been planted in childhood, in Catholic Catechism classes, and the loving kindness of my very religious grandparents, who had a great influence on me.

I studied Psychology in University, because I and others thought my disposition was well suited to counselling those in psychological distress. After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology I worked with "at risk" and disadvantaged children in Regina, SK, and Burnaby, BC, for almost ten years. After that, for about a year, I volunteered and worked at WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre in Vancouver on the crisis lines, with women victims of violence.

Still motivated by public service, I went to Journalism school, and wrote stories about social justice that I felt passionate about. Stories about oppression and injustice and human rights especially interested me.

I have volunteered for many organizations over the years including:

• SCEP Centre in Regina, for Autistic and troubled children.
• Woodlands in New Westminster.
• WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre, Vancouver.
• Christian Task Force on Central America: I designed and did layout of their newsletter.
• Vancouver Women's Health Collective, briefly.
• Vancouver Status on Women: I wrote a few articles for Kinesis magazine.
• Rogers Cable Television: I did stories on alternative health, heritage housing, and did some line producing, and studio and mobile camera in a community TV setting.
• Vancouver International Film Festival 2009: I volunteered in the information booth.
• Shaw Cable, Vancouver: I interned there recently as a production assistant and camera person.

In fact, I think with all the volunteering I have done over the years with children, youth, women, and other socially conscious organizations, and with my natural inclination towards living a simple lifestyle (ie. economical, resourceful, hearty), I may well be cut out for the kind of work that CUSO does.

So I decided to apply, perhaps being inspired by the present situation in Haiti, which seems so dire right now. I would be honoured to do the kind of work that needs to be done in a situation like this, under the leadership a reputable organizations such as CUSO.

Simone Hoedel's Updated PDF Resume and other Portfolio Links

My Updated Resume
My most recent writing online

Sask Ag and Food Documents I designed/collaborated on:

• EDAC 2007 Conference Brochure
• Cooperative Directors' Handbook
• SAF Internal Communications Strategy
• BREI Spousal Brochure

SAASE (Saskatchewan Association of Agricultural Societies and Exhibitions):

• SAASE Newsletter
• Regional Meetings Poster and Brochure Campaign
  

Leon's Mfg. Company:

• Leon Quarterly Newsletter
• Ram Staff Newsletter

Team Player: Poco Wranglers Girls Soccer Team

Team Player: Poco Wranglers Soccer Club. BC Provincial Championships under 18, 1979 (Yikes!)caption

Poco Wranglers Girls Soccer Team:
An excellent example of how using frightfully hideous uniforms can be a psychological force multiplier.

Our amazing under 18 girls' soccer team won the BC Provincial Championship in 1979 (!)
I am in the centre: goalie, key position.

Herbal Remedy

by Simone Hoedel

Video piece which aired May 26, 1997, for Plugged In Vancouver, on Rogers Cable

Voiceover (Simone Hoedel)

Herbs may be the medicine of the twenty-first century. More and more people are using herbs to boost their health. But Health Canada wants to regulate herbs, restricting some herbs from sale, and reclassifying many as drugs. And that has herbalists fighting mad.

Elaine Stevens, herbalist:

What the Health Protection Branch are trying to do is regulate the herbs themselves and make an awful lot of them unavailable to the public. Not just unavailable over the counter, but unavailable even through the use of an herbalist - and that's where we have a real problem.

Joseph Wu, Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine:

Because Chinese herbs are neither food nor drugs. It is not reasonable. It is not a fact to force Chinese herbs into drugs. And then force them to apply a DIN number which nobody can afford, and nobody can get it either.

V/O:

But Dennis Shelley at the Health Protection Branch says the government only wants to protect consumers from unsafe products and fraud. That's what the Drug Identification Number is supposed to do.

Simone Hoedel, reporter:

What's the purpose of a Drug Identification Number?

Dennis Shelley, Health Protection Branch:

It allows the public to know and understand that the product has been screened and evaluated by the appropriate officials in the federal government for safety, efficacy and quality. It's one thing if Chinese medicine is pure Chinese medicine, but some of these products have undeclared western drugs, are spiked in fact.

V/0:

But Dr. Wu says Chinese medicine is misunderstood

Dr. Wu:

I believe the Health Protection Branch try to do a good job, but they have to have expertise on Chinese herbology and Traditional Chinese medicine on their staff. The regulation kind of put us in an illegal status. I'm illegal, honestly. But (if) you're going to catch me, you're going to have to catch the whole country of people who practice.

V/O:

Sales of herbs were up last year. Business is booming. Yet herbalists say these regulations and the new licensing fees will make it difficult for smaller companies to survive.

Elaine Stevens:

What that will do is that it will drive an awful lot of the product off the market from the small people because while the larger companies who manufacture a fairly narrow range of products will continue to do that and they'll have a DIN # for all their products, a lot of the smaller people can't possibly afford to do that.

Dr. Wu:

Besides all these difficulties, they want you to prove that (non-medicinal) Chinese herbs have no pharmacologic action. That's a difficult process. It costs me lots and lots of money. I cannot do it.

V/O:

Meanwhile, Elaine Stevens shows us how an herb becomes a drug. Elaine: (video demo)

Dennis Shelley:

If someone was trying to represent garlic tablets or garlic capsules as some kind of cure or treatment for disease, that would be of concern to us. Clearly that's medicinal and it would be a drug and therefore would be regulated as one.

V/O:

The Health Protection Branch has recently announced the formation of an Advisory Panel on Herbal Remedies. This panel will ideally consult with herbalists to develop policy on regulation. Meanwhile Dr. Wu sums it all up for us.

Dr. Wu:

Food is food. Drug is drugs. Herb is herbs. Should not be mixed.

This is Simone Hoedel reporting for Plugged In Vancouver.

EDAC Delegate Kit and brochure: design, layout and copyediting by Simone Hoedel

The EDAC (Economic Developers Association of Canada) Conference was held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in September, 2007. Here is a link to my work.

I was part of the team that put together the well-received EDAC Delegate Kit packages, and the EDAC Brochure. Layout and design by Simone Hoedel, using Adobe InDesign, Photoshop.

Our team members include:

-Ron Monette, SAF Agribusiness Development Specialist
-Verona Thibault, Executive Director, Saskatchewan Economic Development Association, or SEDA
-Leah Jensen, On Purpose Marketing

-plus many others at SAF and RECD

The images in the brochure belong to many different photographers. I adapted both documents from a previous design by (Green Apple Design?), especially the cover, to keep some consistency with previous marketing materials.

Downtown Eastside Stories: Spirit of St. Francis Inspires Atonement Sisters

In 1992, when I volunteered at Women Against Violence Against Women, which was at the time located in the heart of the seedy downtown eastside in Vancouver, I got a first hard glimpse at the gritty lives of some of the people who lived and worked on these streets.

I went to Journalism school in part to describe the human side of this downtrodden neighbourhood. My goal in writing, taking photographs and interviewing, was to understand WHY people end up down here.

By SIMONE HOEDEL
(published July 1996 in BC Catholic)

People spill out of the packed St. Paul's Church on East Cordova Street and file around the corner into the basement lunchroom of the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement.

There the sisters and Franciscan monks in their brown habits and Knights of Columbus in full regalia chat with families, children, elderly people and the poor of Vancouver's downtown east side as they load their paper plates with fruit, sausages and pastry tarts.

They are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Sisters' mission in Vancouver, where some 700 people a day come for soup and sandwiches.

Dayle Moseley, of the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association, claims the area has the poorest median income in Canada. About 60 percent of the population rely on social assistance and live on Skid Row because "they can't afford to live anywhere else," he said.

Sister Carmel Finelli SA, director of the mission at the corner of Cordova and Dunlevy Streets, said that although the sisters and friars also operate a men's clothing room and a day treatment program for sobriety, "basically, we can offer only food." The people need a lot more services, she said.

"The Sister's Place" got its start in 1926 as a Japanese Catholic Mission in Vancouver's Strathcona district, an area which had a high concentration of Japanese immigrants. The sisters evangelized by offering instruction in English. The work was begun by Kathleen O'Melia, a "staunch convert" from Anglicanism, who later became Sister Mary Stella SA.

In October of the same year, four Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement arrived from Graymoor Garrison in New York. The sisters had experience working with Italian immigrants at Saint Clare's Franciscan Mission in New York City.

World War II challenge

By the following year, according to Atonement Society reports, the little mission on Cordova had 266 children registered in Sunday School. The sisters were also visiting homes and hospitals, feeding and clothing the poor, taking care of the sick, preparing children for First Communion and instructing the Japanese in religion as well as English.

Because of the sisters' success, a second Japanese Catholic mission was started in 1931 in Steveston (south of Vancouver in Richmond), where another Japanese immigrant community was growing. Later the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement arrived to help the sisters.

Their greatest challenge came with World War II.

Historical material in archives reveals the tone of that time: During a reception on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, soldiers rushed into the hall warning of an ensuing blackout, one of many to come.

For the safety of the Japanese, a curfew was put in place by a government security commission working out of the daycare building.

After war was declared on Japan, all Japanese within 160 kilometers of the Pacific coast were ordered to move inland. Nine thousand Japanese Canadians in Vancouver were forced to give up their homes, businesses and possessions and evacuated into ghost towns like Greenwood in the interior of the province.

Some of the sisters went with the Japanese. Those who remained in Vancouver continued to work with the poor, including those who took over the jobs left by the Japanese, including immigrants from the prairies who came to work in the shipyards.

After the internment of the Japanese, the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement were forced to reevaluate their mandate.

Archbishop William Duke wrote to Mother Monica of the Mission Dec.1 1942: "The war upset the work here and we are waiting to see what will happen before making any adjustments."

Eventually he gave the sisters permission to start a day nursery for white children "on account of your apostolate to the Japanese being interrupted."

During the 1950s, an informal lunch program evolved for the "poor unemployed men," although the Franciscans had been informally feeding the needy since the tough times of the early 1930s.

By 1955, the sisters were feeding 200-300 people a day. Today, they feed up to 700. A few years ago, it was as high as 1,000, but Sister Carmel said other agencies in the area have alleviated the burden somewhat during the last two years.

The sisters' lunch program is run to a large extent by volunteers and donations. lndividuals, companies and parishes donate food, and volunteers help prepare and distribute 1,500-2,000 sandwiches a day.

Wallace and Pauline Eng, who belong to the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi and own a farm in Surrey, have donated produce to the sisters for the past three years.

"We know this is a good place because they help needy people every day," said Pauline at the celebration May 18.

Clair Hoye, who has volunteered with the sisters for 13 years, makes sandwiches every morning. "The food lines aren't getting any smaller," she said. "The number of people lined up on the street is increasing. More needy people are trying to make ends meet."

Archbishop Adam Exner OMI of Vancouver, who celebrated Mass for the occasion in the diminutive St. Paul's Church on Cordova Street, said the spirit of St. Francis inspires the sisters' work.

"St. Francis recognized that everything he had was a gift from God," the archbishop said in his homily. "He had a very special place in his heart for the poor."

"The sisters have not only experienced the gift of God, but also recognised that it is a gift to be given," he said. "They have shared their gifts with the poor."

Downtown Eastside Stories: Dinners Warm Empty Stomachs

In 1992, when I volunteered at Women Against Violence Against Women, which was at the time located in the heart of the seedy downtown eastside in Vancouver, I got a first hard glimpse at the gritty lives of some of the people who lived and worked on these streets.

It was shocking to find out later a member of my own family ended up living in the heart of the worst part of the district.

I went to Journalism school in part to describe the human side of this downtrodden neighbourhood. My goal in writing, taking photographs and interviewing, was to understand WHY people end up down here.


By SIMONE HOEDEL (published in the Voice, Fall 1993)

It's Thanksgiving on the downtown east side in Vancouver. On this sunny day, street people are lined up on Cordova Street around the block outside the Union Gospel Mission, near Oppenheimer Park.

They're here for the food: a hot turkey dinner with dressing, mashed potatoes, carrots, gravy, pumpkin pie and coffee.

But first, each group of one hundred people is led into the chapel for a church service. The group, mostly Native, sat with their heads bowed until the folk songs are over. From there, they are led to the spotless dining room next door.

Brother Daniel is a Franciscan friar, a brother in a Catholic order, who manages the daily sandwich line two blocks west of the Mission on Cordova at the Sisters of Atonement. The Sisters feed 800 to 1,000 street people a day.

Brother Daniel says most of the people on the streets are addicted to alcohol and drugs and can't manage their own lives. A large number are mentally ill. Many more are elderly or street kids. A lot of the people in the food line-up are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, crime, and substance abuse. Most live in cockroach infested hotel rooms and rooming houses that don't have kitchen facilities. That's why they use these soup lines.

The standard rental rate for a hotel room on the downtown eastside is $325 a month, exactly what welfare allows for accommodation expenses. The remaining $210 is supposed to pay for all other essential living expenses, which for many includes not only food, but a drug or alcohol habit, and cigarettes.

Rich MacHale, who lives at Salvation Army's Harbour Light Center on Cordova Street said that 75 per cent of the people on the streets have drug or alcohol problems. MacHale said he lost everything because of his alcohol problems and ended up living on the outskirts of skid row in Vancouver.

"When you have nothing, your self-esteem is low. How do you go and apply for a job when you don't have any clothes?" MacHale said.

Three blocks east of the Harbour Light, members of the Quest Outreach Society prepare turkey dinners in the basement of St. James Church. The organization, which serves about 6,000 meals a week to the homeless in Vancouver and Burnaby, is staffed by volunteers.

Jim Georgica, a volunteer with Quest for the past year and a half, has been living on the streets for more than 25 years. He was put in an orphanage in Saskatchewan for a while when he was ten years old and said he never really got over feeling rejected by his mother and stepfather. Running away from home at 15, it wasn't long before he had an alcohol problem and was spending six or seven months of the year in jail.

When asked if he will ever see a time when he is out of this rut, Georgica answers with a quote from a George Thorogood song .... “I’ve been down so long, it seems like up to me.”

Cooperative Directors Handbook

I designed, laid out and copyedited the Cooperative Directors Handbook in early 2007 for Wayne Thrasher in the department of Regional Economic and Cooperative Development (Saskatchewan).

Speech to repeal Agricultural Societies Act in Saskatchewan, by Simone Hoedel

Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of my remarks, I will move

Second Reading of The Agricultural Societies Repeal

Act.

Mr. Speaker, the Agricultural Societies Act was first

drafted before Saskatchewan became a province.

Since then, Saskatchewan has developed a much

more advanced economy. As such, the Act no longer

reflects the current activities of Agricultural Societies

in Saskatchewan.

The Saskatchewan Association of Agricultural

Societies and Exhibitions, or SAASE (SA-see), has

been responsible for overseeing the operations of

agricultural societies in a director role.

For the past four years, SAASE has been reviewing

the current Act to include needed changes and

updates.

Mr. Speaker, because of major changes in the roles

of SAASE, the provincial government, and the

University Extension Division, a large number of

changes and amendments to the Agricultural

Societies Act was required.

Therefore, in 2005, SAASE proposed to its member

Agricultural Societies that the Act be repealed, and

they agreed.

Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food and the

University of Saskatchewan, who are both SAASE

board members, agree the Act should be repealed.

Mr. Speaker, the Agricultural Societies Act was last

amended in 1978. At least 26 amendments or

changes are needed to bring the Act up to date.

Moreover, several provincial Acts already exist that

may provide and make loan guarantees to agricultural

organizations and associations.

In the absence of the Agricultural Societies Act,

agricultural societies can apply under the Non-profit

Corporations Act to form legal entities.

Mr. Speaker, SAASE is a provincially incorporated

non-profit association made up of elected and

appointed representatives of member Agricultural

Societies and Exhibition Associations.

The Association has its own bylaws and regulations.

SAASE also includes representatives from the federal

and provincial governments, and the University of

Saskatchewan.

If the Agricultural Societies Act is repealed, the

University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan

Agriculture and Food could still retain its membership

on the SAASE board if required.

Mr. Speaker, the decision to repeal the Agricultural

Societies Act follows extensive consultations.

These consultations to review the current Agricultural

Societies Act began four and a half years ago,

through the Saskatchewan Association of Agricultural

Societies and Exhibitions.

At the Association’s 2005 Annual General Meeting,

members generally agreed that the Act did not

accurately reflect its role.

So, SAASE proposed to its members that the

Agricultural Societies Act be repealed.

The SAASE Board of Directors represents all

provincial agricultural societies.

The repeal of the Agricultural Societies Act will also

affect four other Acts: The Auctioneers Act; The Cities

Act; The Municipalities Act; and The Credit Union Act.

Consultations with the Department of Justice have

provided recommendations and changes to these

affected Acts.

Mr. Speaker, the Repeal of the Agricultural Societies

Act would bring Agricultural Societies into the twentyfirst

century.

Therefore, I move that The Agricultural Societies

Repeal Act be read a second time.

Thank you.