Reader's Digest Canada September 2021

For the second year in a row, we’re celebrating one of our favourite things: random acts of kindness. Starting on page 26, you’ll read about people who donate kidneys, protect ancient trees, return childhood diaries and, in one nail- biting scene, grab a man who is leaping off an overpass. There’s even a brave dog who stops traffic to save his unconscious owner. This was a bumper season for kindness. Over the past few months, I’ve been especially impressed by my Toronto neighbours and their outspoken support of the city’s homeless encampments. Since the start of the pandemic, much of the homeless population has been living in makeshift dwellings in the city’s parks and ravines, despite the threat of arrest and removal. But living in parks is far safer than being…

AL DONATO Writer, Toronto “Good News: Five Reasons to Smile” Donato is a freelance journalist who has been published by HuffPost Canada and CBC. Donato specializes in stories about equity issues and trans well-being, and has co-hosted and produced Born and Raised, an acclaimed podcast about secondgeneration Canadians. Read their roundup of uplifting stories from around the world on page 11. LUCY LU Photographer, Toronto “Talk It Out” Lu is an artist and photographer whose work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Magazine, Maclean’s and The Walrus. Her images highlight cultural identities, personal histories and human connection. Lu’s work has been exhibited in galleries across Ontario, most notably the Ryerson Image Centre. Check out her photo on page 8. ALLISON BAKER Writer, Toronto “Back to the Grind” Baker is a fact checker, copy editor and writer, as…

FALSELY ADVERTISED Thank you for “How to Outsmart a Scammer” (May 2021). The too-goodto- be-true scams are the ones that bother me the most. Last year, I fell for a company’s claims about a portable air conditioner. When it arrived and I plugged it in, it worked no better than the fan from my local store. — CAROL OVERING, Dundas, Ont. RISING NUMBERS I appreciated the topical, balanced and helpful article, “A World of Worry” (May 2021). There was a distortion, however, in the following statement: “Arthur is one of the 44 million North Americans who experience an anxiety disorder.” A quick check indicated that you overlooked Mexico, where another 18 million people suffer from anxiety. — RICK BELL, Cowley, Alta. FLOWER POWER When I read “Golden Years” (June 2021), Mark Angus Hamlin’s story about his mother…

BACK IN 2017, Hani Al-Dajane was struggling to figure out where he fit in. Al-Dajane, then 25, was the only Arab at the Toronto law firm where he worked. Every time he scrolled online, he saw mainstream media stories filled with negative stereotypes about his culture—if they included Arab perspectives at all. And, within his own Arab community, he felt there weren’t enough spaces for young people to talk about the issues that mattered to them, such as racism, gender equality or LGBTQ rights. Finally, he confided in his friend Mays Alwash, a 24-year-old biology student. Both Al-Dajane and Alwash had moved to Canada from other countries (he from Kuwait and she from Iraq), and hit it off in university. Alwash was similarly troubled by the dearth of Arab voices in…

A RAINFOREST FOR EVERYONE BELIZE Rainforests are well known as habitat for extraordinary numbers of species of flora and fauna. They’re also the Earth’s lungs. But deforestation from development and farming is a constant threat: between 2010 and 2020, South America lost 2.6 million hectares of forest per year. One section of rainforest now has a lifetime guarantee against that fate. This past April, a coalition of 16 conservation partners, including the Nature Conservancy, a global non-profit, bought about 95,000 hectares of land from the Forestland Group, a logging company. Named the Belize Maya Forest by its new guardians, the area is a vital habitat for jaguars, spider monkeys and pumas. “If that area had not been purchased, the likely future of it was going to be full clearcutting of the forest for…

When COVID-19 arrived in Frog Lake First Nation, Jacob Faithful, a 42-year-old owner of a janitorial business, was inundated with requests from his friends and neighbours for personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks. The pandemic disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples in Western Canada, including Frog Lake, a community some 200 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, with an on-reserve population of 2,100. But PPE supplies remained hard to come by, especially in remote towns. Last November, Faithful had an idea: why not make masks right there in Frog Lake? Working out of the gym of the local health centre, his company became the first mask-manufacturing business on a Canadian reserve that’s fully owned and operated by Indigenous people. Young Spirit Supplies, named after Faithful’s traditional music singing group, now employs 30 people and produces 100,000…