Journalist Helen Fallding discusses the crises facing First Nation communities in Canada about lack of safe and reliable drinking water. too many communities do not have running water and must get it old style from the lake or river. This lack of water when surrounded by lakes causes health problems and issues because people are unable to bathe properly. These situations are especially egregious for families with young children. People become sick and ill and often it is possible to catch a skin disease. I discuss how some First Nations have pulp and paper mills which dump chemicals into the local water making for possible high cancer rates and death within a community. Helen talks about the new initiatives of the Centre for Human Rights Research as well as her work with water and her work as a journalist.
Helen Fallding is a lifelong human rights activist who ran women's centres at the University of Toronto and in Victoria, B.C., helped the Carcross Tagish First Nation negotiate a land claim and co-founded Yukon's first gay organisation. Her first job as a reporter was with Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon — the Beat of a Different Drummer. She joined the Winnipeg Free Press in 1998, where she was Western Manitoba regional reporter, legislature bureau chief and then science reporter before becoming assistant city editor. Helen has won awards for feminist activism and for journalism, most recently for a series of stories about lack of running water on Manitoba First Nations, published shortly before she joined the University of Manitoba and the Centre for Human Rights Research as it manager.
To Learn more Interview (Podcast):
http://archive.org/details/TheUniversityOfManitobaCentreForHumanRightsResearchAndHelenFallding
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