Ganley caps off her big year by receiving YMCA Peace Medal
Activist and writer honoured for championing feminist views
Community organizer Rosemary Ganley received the YMCA Peace Medal on Friday morning at the Balsillie Family Y.
“I’m overjoyed, I’m thrilled,” Ganley said at a ceremony in the foyer of the Aylmer Street facility on Friday in front of about 80 people.
Later in the ceremony she quipped that receiving a peace medal means she may not have been “combative enough” in championing her feminist values.
“Too late now,” she said, smiling.
Ganley, 81, is a retired high school teacher, writer and lifelong feminist.
Her column on politics and social justice appears weekly in The Examiner.
She’s also a co-founder — with her late husband John — of the locally based international development charity Jamaica SelfHelp.
Earlier this year she was asked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to sit on an advisory council on gender equality for the leaders of the G7 — the seven richest and most industrialized countries in the world.
She also released a book this summer, a collection of her columns.
“2018 has been a banner year,” she told the group at the YMCA on Friday. “And this is the crowning moment, right now.”
As part of YMCA Peace Week, Ys across Canada present their Peace Medal to people or groups who carry out peace-building work without special resources, wealth or status.
Last year’s recipient was racial justice advocate Charmaine Magumbe, who spoke on Friday.
She noted that Ganley’s late husband received the Peace Medal in 2005.
“But John and Rosemary worked together for social justice,” Magumbe said.
Ganley told the crowd she’d placed a framed photo of John on a table at the reception at the Y foyer. She also acknowledged pretty much everyone in the crowd.
Ganley thanked Sheila Nabigon-Howlett, for instance, a social-justice activist and past recipient of the Peace Medal, for nominating her.
She said she wanted to point out specific people in the crowd so they could more easily talk and mingle later.
“The important thing about today is that you meet one another,” she said.
Ganley also spoke about her most recent work as a member of the council of women from around the world who advised G7 leaders this summer on how to advance gender equality in all areas of their work.
The co-chairs of the council were Melinda Gates and Isabelle Hudon, Canada’s ambassador to France and Monaco.
Ganley said she could hardly believe it when she received a phone call from Trudeau, early this year, asking her to be a part of the council.
“I had to pinch myself,” she said.
Ganley had family at the Y on Friday: her son Paul from Newmarket was there, as well as young granddaughters Emma and Ava.
Although Ganley’s activism took her to the G7 meetings, she said peace can be achieved through simple, day-to-day civility.
You can start by ignoring the anonymous posts and comments attached to news stories online, for example.
“Don’t read those — don’t honour them,” she said.
Write in a “civil way,” she said, and always sign your name.
“That’s progressive, respectful politics.”