A trip to the capital

I was in Ottawa for a few days this week for work. It was wonderful to reconnect with coworkers and friends. Even though I’ve only been in Toronto for 7 weeks or so, it feels like much longer to me. It was a whirlwind three days, but lots of fun.

I was happy to be able to go to Ottawa to join my colleagues for our National Child Day celebrations. Our department is responsible for organizing federal activities for this day – November 20^th – also known as Universal Children’s Day. This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child so there were many events taking place around town.

We went to the annual National Child Day Senate Breakfast in the morning, facilitated a webinar on public health and children’s rights in the early afternoon (a collaborative effort between our department, CHNET-Works!, and presenters from UNICEF Canada, the Canadian Red Cross, and a youth panel from the Students Commission), and attended an event at the Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights in the late afternoon. I was exhausted by the end of the day but so happy to experience the passion people have for human rights, and for the rights of children. I don’t know what the future will hold for me in religious life, in terms of work, but I do hope to continue to work on children’s rights in some way. There is so much that needs to be done!

Tonight I have been preparing for a special celebration that will take place tomorrow afternoon. I am officially being received into the community as a candidate. It’s very exciting! I have been given a copy of the program (which I will post tomorrow after the celebration has taken place). It has been beautifully and thoughtfully put together by my candidacy director – I have a feeling that I will end up crying by the end of it!