Volume 6, number 7
April 11, 2002
Quito, Ecuador-On March 30, a daily half-hour program
in Low German began broadcasting in South America, Canada, Mexico
and Germany. Cooperating in the venture are the Family Life Network
in Winnipeg, Janz Team, Radio ZP30 in Paraguay, and other groups.
In Canada, the program is broadcast from Vancouver, Saskatoon,
Winnipeg and Toronto. It is aimed at Mennonite immigrants from
Russia and Germany who continue to use the Low German language.
-From release by Hermann
Schirmacher
Cambridge, Ont.-Meritas Mutual Funds, a provider of socially responsible investments, has withdrawn a shareholder resolution calling on Enbridge Inc. to avoid complicity in human rights abuses in Colombia. Meritas had presented the resolution together with Real Assets Investment Management Inc. "We talked to senior management and they listened," said Deb Abbey of Real Assets. The resolution was withdrawn because Enbridge agreed to adopt the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. This was the first social-content resolution to be filed under the revised Canadian Business Corporations Act. Meritas is providing proxy voting results on line at its expanded web site: www.meritas.ca. "We feel there is a growing need for mutual fund companies to be accountable to their unitholders with respect to their proxy voting intentions," said Gary Hawton, chief executive officer. "Shareholder activism is one of the key pillars of socially responsible investing," agreed a colleague.
-Meritas releases
Winnipeg, Man.-Erin Braun-Janzen and Hannah Burkholder from Robert H. Smith School here won awards in a Heritage Canada challenge to celebrate Black History Month, the annual Mathieu Da Costa Challenge. Braun-Janzen, age 11, won first place in her age category for her essay on David Toews. "He signed a loan with the Canadian Pacific Railway for 20,000 Mennonites to come to Manitoba in the 1920s," she said. "He helped my great-grandpa and his children, my great aunts and uncles to come to Canada." Burkholder, age 10, received an honourable mention for her essay about Hassan Sallah, a local restaurant owner who struggled to come to Canada from Ethiopia. Burkholder said her father, who was born in Ethiopia, suggested she interview Sallah.
-Winnipeg Free Press