Halifax Communauté Nouvelles

In the hours following Sunday night’s fatal mosque shooting in Quebec City, Rana Zaman found herself comforting a daughter scared to be Muslim. My daughter (a university student) and I had this horrible conversation where she felt she was really frightened, she couldn’t sleep and she said she was afraid of being a Muslim,” Rana Zaman said in an interview on Monday.

The Sharpe family finds it difficult to imagine what their lives would be like without Special Olympics. “We probably wouldn’t be as close as a family,” said Ryan Sharpe. “Evan probably wouldn’t have the friend group he has now, and maybe not the same opportunities for physical activity and the skills it helped bring out in him.” Ryan’s brother Evan, now 22, became a Special Olympics athlete 10 years ago. He’s a swimmer and a curler, and has won medals at both the Nova Scotia Summer and Winter Games.

Every two weeks, residents at various assisted living homes around the HRM get ready to greet special visitors. They’re different than the normal variety — they’re therapy dogs (and their owners) who volunteer with the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program. “It started in Ontario in 1993 and it’s been operating in Nova Scotia since 1999 and Prince Edward Island since 2000,” says Tia Larkin, community services coordinator Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island for St. John Ambulance. “Currently we have 300 teams in the two provinces.”

Each time Krista Sweet visits Belize to help train health-care workers and fit children with wheelchairs and walkers, she's reminded of how people with few material assets can survive. Sweet, a pediatric physiotherapist at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, is a volunteer with Team Canada Healing Hands.

Among the tattoos visible on Paul Vienneau’s arms are a shovel and a water bottle. They’re a reminder of what he’s doing with his life and why. In the winter, you’ll often find Vienneau in his wheelchair chopping away at ice and snow to help clear sidewalks, crosswalks, drains and street corners.

Among the tattoos visible on Paul Vienneau’s arms are a shovel and a water bottle. They’re a reminder of what he’s doing with his life and why. In the winter, you’ll often find Vienneau in his wheelchair chopping away at ice and snow to help clear sidewalks, crosswalks, drains and street corners.