Creating healthy and successful communities is the focus of this episode of Countless Journeys. We meet two women who have devoted their lives to helping others help themselves.
Dr. Lalita Malhotra is an obstetrician and gynecologist who has lived in Prince Albert Saskatchewan since she and her husband arrived there in 1975. Originally from Delhi, India, Dr. Malhotra has, incredibly, delivered more than 10,000 babies in her community, earning herself the nickname Angel of the North from the Indigenous communities she serves.
She talks with host Paolo Pietropaolo about the importance of fostering deep ties within communities, mentoring youth, and really listening to patients to better understand the issues they are dealing with.
“I connected so well with the aboriginal women here. And it was a good connexion. And there were so many things which are very common between India and here. Even now, I can always see the connexion, the hypertension, the thyroid, pregnancy, gestational diabetes. All these are so common factors between India and here.”
And Marcie Ponte has been a leading organizer and activist helping immigrant women and their families access services and advocate for better labour conditions within the immigrant-heavy cleaning services sector in Toronto.
Originally from Portugal, Marcie bucked tradition and moved out of her family’s suburban home in Leaside as a single 19-year-old, and moved to the vibrant urban neighbourhood of Kensington Market, home to generations of Portuguese-Canadians.
“I wasn't ready to go off and just get married and have babies. I wanted to live my life. I wanted to experience things. I wanted to do different kinds of work and within the sector. So it was a great experience for me and it really shaped who I am today.”
It’s there that she began her community activism, and today, more than forty years later, she is the executive director of the Working Women’s Community Centre, which provides support and programming to help immigrant women succeed.
Countless Journeys
Community Builders
VO PAOLO
So far this season on Countless Journeys - you’ve heard stories about Canadians who have built businesses... and buildings... and even championship-winning sports teams.
Today, you’ll hear from two women who have devoted their lives to building something that’s just as vital - and perhaps even more important:
Vibrant communities.
In Prince Albert, Saskatchewan -
Dr. Lalita Malhotra has delivered more than 10,000 babies. An astonishing number.
For some families, Dr. Malhotra has welcomed three generations into the world.
They call her the Angel of the North.
Dr. Malhotra
You know, the chief gave me this title. He said, Doctor, nobody connected to our people ever. That's why he called me the Angel of the North, because you are the only one we have seen who connects people to people, not as a patient itself.
PAOLO VO
And…
Marcie Ponte was born in Portugal - she found her calling as a young woman in the Kensington Market neighbourhood of Toronto.
She has spent decades helping immigrant women and their families adjust to life in Canada’s biggest city.
Marcie Ponte
at that time it was Portuguese women coming to Canada like my mother, to join their husbands. We were coming here to build a better life, but also to help build Canada.
PAOLO VO
Their stories are up next.
TAKE OPEN MONTAGE
VO PAOLO
Welcome to Countless Journeys from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. I’m Paolo Pietropaolo. Great to have you with me.
The two women you’ll hear about today are the kinds of remarkable, selfless women who quietly change the world. I find their stories incredibly moving, and I can’t wait for you to meet them.
Later, you’ll hear about the reality of immigration in a big city like Toronto - but first - a story from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan - population, 36,000.
Prince Albert is home to the Angel of the North -
That’s what they call Dr. Lalita Malhotra.
It’s an honorary name that speaks to the deep ties she’s built with First Nations in Northern Saskatchewan.
Dr. Malhotra was the first immigrant woman of colour to set up her own medical practice in Prince Albert - A path she realized she would have to take after she was repeatedly passed over for work in established practices.
It was the beginning of a remarkable career - A career devoted to caring for and often mentoring Indigenous youth…
Many of whom are among the 10,000-plus babies that Dr. Malholtra has delivered over the years.
Dr. Malhotra is one of those people whose energy you just marvel at - how does she do it all? She seems to have so much to give - an incredibly generous and caring spirit. One of the most inspiring people I’ve ever encountered.
I reached Dr. Malhotra recently at her office in Prince Albert for a chat. I began our conversation by asking her what it was like arriving in Prince Albert for the first time.
Dr. Lalita Malhotra
Well, we arrived in Summer, actually, and at that time, you could never imagine how cold it can be because the summers were beautiful at that time, 30 above at the time, and then we arrived. But then winter came. And you can never imagine it's 40 below outside, you know.
And I was pregnant at the time they came and I was wearing a sari and a friend, another doctor's wife, and she said, okay, I'll come and pick you up for coffee, and I have this sari out and she stands there. She said, Do you know how cold it is outside?
And I said “It’s beautiful outside.”
And she said “Go and just change. Put some pants on.”
(laughter) “I’m not taking you with a sari!”
But you could never imagine from 30, about 40 below. You know, it was just so unpredictable. Totally, you know, it's hard, it took a bit of absorption time. Yeah.
PP: Mm hmm. What led you and your husband to choose to settle in Canada?
LM: So I had a sister. She was a professor at university. And until she said if you're going to move from the UK, because all our education was in UK, and at that particular time, it was very difficult to get any consulting jobs there in Ireland or UK.
So we applied to Canada and because of my sister being here. So then my husband applied, he got a job in Calgary as a chief surgeon and then paediatrician from here was leaving and they saw his application in Saskatoon. So they they were all British here at that particular time and they just kept phoning and phoning, really enjoyed with all her British background and everything that brought us to Canada.
PP: Apart from apart from the weather, what what were your impressions of Prince Albert, your first impressions?
LM: My first impression was that I cried, I can tell you, because when we came from the airport to Prince Albert, they were all, you know, how England, as you know, you can never tell from one county to another. And and here, you know, we had travelled so much and we only met about five cars on the highway and you could see nothing. You know it all open fields and a lot of land, which you had never seen before, neither in India nor in England.
It was a totally different experience. Yes.
PP: I want to ask you about your work in women's health. But first, let's go back to to to the 70s and the 80s. Medicine was was very male centric in those days.
LM Absolutely, you know, I found it so hard to find a job because my husband was working in a clinic at that time. It was just clinic orientated. And I was the first female brown doctor, you know, and there was a resistance about as a female doctor and an immigrant, you know, who was going to give me a job? And any of the clinic people never talked to each other. They were just angry with each other. And I got a nothing job, you know, nothing nobody would give me a job.
So I talked to my dad and my dad said, you know, you always done things on your own, so why couldn't you open your own practise, you know? Hmm. I said, OK, we will do that. So I rented a place up, established it, advertised it, and then my husband had to go through hell, you know, because all the doctors were telling me, your wife is crazy. You know, this town only people only go to a clinic, they don't go to a doctor. So he said, you know, the thing is that she has to work. That’s in her body, that she has to work.
I started my practice on the very first day I saw about 12 patients and I had no problem getting established, but it was with the younger kids. You were lucky to be able to get a live in babysitter at that time. But there were two hospitals here and you had to run from one to the other. And I mean, I had a full blown practice by two years. And after that everybody wanted me. Do you want to come and join us at the clinic?
PP How did that feel?
LM I said I wasn't good enough for you two years ago. Now I'm good because I've got established practice? My obstetrics were higher, and I was delivering about 180 deliveries in a year at that time. And then it went up to over three hundred deliveries a year. And I said no. I said when I needed you, you weren't there for me. Now, I'm able to manage it quite well.
PP: That's that's amazing.
LM: My husband was very supportive of my work always. You know, that was the good part. I was quite happy, I was happy and raising the children, I would get up at 530, take the older daughter for swimming and take the younger one for piano lessons, they would take them in practice, go and pick the other one for the third one on the piano, it was a roller coaster.
But it paid off. In the end, the children achieve what they were supposed to achieve.
PP: Was it unusual to focus on women's health particularly?
LM Yes, because they you know, I have my fellowship from the Royal College Obstetrician Gynaecologist from England. So women's health has been always and and my kids here after I came, you know, I connected so well with the aboriginal women here.. And there were so many things which are very common between India and here. Even now, I can always see the connexion, the hypertension, the thyroid pregnancy, gestational diabetes. All these are so common factors between India and here.
PP: What about the connexion non-medically speaking?
LM: Nonmedical is my connexion with the north, this has been amazing. You know, the chief gave me this title. He said, Doctor, nobody connected to our people ever. That's why he called me the angel of the North, because he said you have only one we have seen who connects people to people, not as a patient itself. So I'm delivering the third generation now.
PP: When you look back at the first generation, which this is amazing, that third generation, when you look back at the first generation that you delivered, what what were those experiences first when you first encountered the North and First Nations, what were those experiences like for you?
LM: It was word of mouth. And they came and they connected. Then you started knowing aunts and uncles and, you know, so you just went on and on. The connexion started getting more and more and more. So that's why it went from one generation to the second to the third.
PP: Now, you must know families and whole families?
LM: Absolutely. I delivered a girl a few months ago and she's thirty seven herself. I delivered, her husband, her five kids. You know, we had a very big emotional moment there, you know, the two grandparents and the five kids and the mom. And they're quite an emotional moment for us. Yeah.
PP: What did you see you know, when you when you decided to to to focus on women's health, um, how did the community receive you? What did you think you could bring to to Prince Albert specifically and and the North when you first started?
LM Well, I first thought you know, the women here were very supressed, couldn't express themselves. You know, you could see it in their eyes. And in my case, I see the women sometimes don't tell you what they're there for. And if you look into their eyes, you can read more. It's just having making sure that you have an eye to eye contact with the person. And if you have an eye to eye contact, you can read a lot more on her face than you can read what she tells you. Hmm. But you have to look at their face all the time. You know, if you don't look at their face, you miss out.
PP: Tell me a bit more about about what it was like for you to to receive that that name, the Angel of the North, to receive the star blanket. What did that mean to you?
LM: Oh, it means a lot to me. More you know, the more you think of it, the importance and the emotion involved. Giving it to me is very, very important. The other day, I had a patient come in, she brought a box, it had an eagle feather on it. OK, and you open the box with an eagle feather with beads on it and the lining of the box has eagle feather on it. I mean, how emotional is that part for me? You know. She said, thank you for all of the service you've given us for the year. You know, it's not the box, it’s the emotion behind it.
PP: That's incredible.
LM that that is very touching, you know.
PP: I mean, you've spoken to me a bit about how your work rewards you as a doctor, as a person. I wonder if you can remember other specific patients - I mean, you must have seen thousands of people over the years. But when you look back, do any patients, any experiences come to your memory?
LM:There are so many. I had a girl who was the only child of the family, used to come every day, every week. She would come sit down, say nothing. I said, What's the matter? Nothing. I'll come back. And she will pick up her bag and go and then come back next week again.
And the third time when she came, I said, well, you know, I'm going to close this door and want to tell me why you are here? I said, you keep coming this is no good at all. I said. Then she said, you know my parents and I can't talk about it. I said, you have to talk about it.
She said they come home, they're both teachers, they come home and drink. And then you will tell them what I said. I said, no, I won't. And I said, What is your ambition in life? She was in grade 10. And I said, What is your ambition in life? I want to be a lawyer. And I said, OK, you want to be a lawyer. So then what you have to do, you have to become you have two choices. One, you join your parents to drink, other choice is you follow your ambitions. all you're doing is you're the only child and I know very well that they will pay for your education. And I think all what you do is to come home, have supper, go sit and put your bottom on the chair, study, study, study. And eventually that's what she did. She became a lawyer. I went to her wedding in Alberta, and that's it.
And I know another girl who want to be a doctor would come and touch my white coat and say “I want to wear this.”
I said, why won’t you want to wear it? And eventually she went into teaching. I said, what happened to your ambition? Becoming a doctor? But I don't think I can do it. So we had to push her and push her. and now she graduated, she doing her residency. So, you know, there are so many, so many, many. And I have so many lawyers who have become, so many nursing who are, you know, all Aboriginal girls. These are all girls who have been stimulated. But my focus has always been education.
PP: I was reading how your family recently gifted eight hundred thousand dollars to the neonatal intensive care unit at the Victoria Hospital. The current unit seems quite small. I was reading about three hundred and seventy five square feet and and that you're going to double the size of the unit, which is amazing. Why was it important to you and to your family to support the hospital in this?
LM That was the reason was that my husband being a paediatrician and he was a very good neonatologist himself. And I remember on one of our anniversary, the nurses were going on strike and there were no beds here. And you flew down and took every baby down to Alberta three times in that night. And ha said you know, I wish we had a nice neonatal unit here where we could deal with the babies ourselves and didn't have to transfer them anywhere.
So it was always in the back of my mind. And it is in his memory, actually, you know, that we wanted the neonatal unit.
PP You're a member of the Order of Canada. You were invested in February of 2007.
When you look back on on on the fact that you arrived, you know, in Prince Albert in the seventies as an immigrant and then to be awarded that Order of Canada, what did that mean to you?
LM I'm very privileged that people appreciate and have given me this honour. But their biggest privilege, I thought, was being appointed to the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada. I was the first immigrant who ever being appointed on this. And I learnt a lot from each each member who was there.
PP You know, now you're a busy doctor, you've raised a family. You're continue to be busy working long, long hours. At the same time, you also make time for volunteer work in your community. Tell me a bit about the volunteer work that you do.
LM Well You can not live in a community and not do the work for the community, it’s just not done. You know, whatever anybody asked me to do, I will do it. I will never say no. helping the patients to get their resumes done. A lot of them, their parents are not educated enough and they want to apply for any university credits. all those things are a part of the community helping and anything which is done with the arts centre, with the city, anything that needs to be done. If they asked me to do I will never say no.
PP That's incredible. How do you how do you find the energy to do all of that?
LM: I don't know. I know a lot of people have asked me about the energy. You know, I eat very healthy. And I exercise.
And secondly, you know, when people need you, you get the energy automatically, it comes by itself. Yeah.
PP: It's been such a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
LM It's been such a pleasure talking to you.
PP: You as well. Take care.
MUSIC BRIDGE
PAOLO VO
The amazing Dr. Lalita Malhotra. One of the loveliest, most generous, most caring people I’ve ever encountered.
Now I’m joined now by Countless Journeys producer Tina Pittaway… Welcome Tina!
TINA VO
Hi Paolo.
Thanks Paolo.
PAOLO VO
Tina - I have to tell you - A couple of months after Dr Malhotra and I spoke on the phone for this podcast - she called me back - just to check in, and see how I was doing - how my kids were doing.
TINA VO
That doesn't surprise me because she emailed me like weeks after I had set up your your conversation with her to check in on how I was doing.
PAOLO
Really one of the most inspiring people you could ever hope to meet - and a true force for community in Canada.
TINA
And one of those people that you don’t necessarily hear about if you don’t live in her community. So I’m thrilled we could bring her story to a wider audience.
PAOLO
So true - and I’m really grateful to Pier 21 for making it possible for us to share these stories far and wide.
Stories like Dr Malhotra’s and stories like the one you’re about to share - about another Community Builder - a woman who moved here from Portugal with her family when she was a young girl.
TINA VO
Yes. And just as Dr. Malhotra’s work has had such an impact on her community in Prince Albert, the story I have today features a woman whose lifelong work has been devoted to improving the lives of women and families in Toronto.
Marcie Ponte
My full name is Marcelina Torres de Ponte, but it was quickly changed and shortened when I started school in Kingston Ontario in grade one. The teacher said it was too long, so they cut it down to Marcie Ponte.
PAOLO VO
Oof, changing people’s names seems to have been a pretty routine practice eh?
TINA VO
Yes - I hope the practice is less common these days, but it sure was something that was done pretty routinely, and I’m sure lots of families have similar stories.
PAOLO VO
Now Tina - this is a conversation from the Museum’s Oral History Collection.
TINA VO
That’s right. It was recorded in 2018 with Emily Burton, who is an oral historian with the Museum.
PAOLO VO
In the past little while, Tina, you've been telling me about Marcy's work supporting immigrant women in Toronto, which is my hometown. Yeah. So I'm really keen to learn more about about her work.
TINA VO
Well she’s the Executive Director of an organization called the Working Women Community Centre.
And it’s their fundamental belief that immigrant women are at the core of successful families and thriving communities.
PAOLO VO
I have to say that is a sentiment that I can 100 percent fully agree with, having experienced it firsthand growing up as the child of Italian immigrants in Toronto. I mean, it's so true. So this centre that the Working Women Community Centre, they offer programming to support immigrant women I suppose.
TINA VO
They do. They started out back in the 70s with one facility in Parkdale and they’ve expanded to a total of four locations across Toronto.
Their programs cover everything - for example, they help newcomers overcome some of the barriers that often stand in the way of accessing services - or getting a toe hold in the job market.
In terms of impact, their programs reached more than 9,000 newcomers and their families last year.
PAOLO VO
Wow. That is not a small number. And that's that's that's some important work.
TINA VO
It is such vital grass roots work, and it was really interesting to hear Marcie talk about how she got her start in it.
That’s really what I want to focus on for this segment - the influences in her life that led her to this kind of work.
You’ll hear all about that in a minute or two.
But first, you’ll hear from Toronto City Councillor Ana Bailão. She represents Ward 9, Davenport, where Marcie has lived and worked for many years.
PP:
I know it well - That’s the neighbourhood I grew up in! A lot of immigrants and their children. We came from so many different countries, growing up.
TP:
Ms. Bailao also came to Canada from Portugal, when she was fifteen,and has known Marcie for many years.
And I spoke with her a few weeks back EDIT and she described the impact of the Working Women Community Centre on the lives of people in her community.
Ana Bailao:
Especially in the settlement and support of immigrant women and their families with programmes such as settlement programmes. So all kinds of support, information, integration programmes, including language programmes to immigrant women, then to their families as well.
So we have community with very high dropout rate and Portuguese Spanish speaking communities. So Marcie started a programme called On Your Mark that over the years has helped hundreds and hundreds of students throughout their school years. There's programmes that they have around food security as well, that they assist newcomers and from community gardens to food preparations, you name it, there's a number of those involved as well.
PAOLO VO
That’s Toronto City Councillor Ana Bailão - describing some of the invaluable ways that an organization like Marcie’s can help out. I remember hearing about organizations like these growing up in Toronto - and how crucial they were at helping people find their feet while experiencing the bewildering, overwhelming reality of arriving in a new country.
Speaking of which - what was it like for Marcie when she came to Canada?
TINA VO
She arrived in Canada in 1963, from Portugal’s Santa Maria Island, which is part of the Azores.
She was seven years old, and she arrived in Vancouver along with her mother and three siblings. Her father had left Portugal a few years earlier.
MP
He was here for five or six years before we joined.
Canada was busy building itself at that time and he was intrigued to come and help build the railways in Western Canada.
So my father the purpose for coming here was to seek a better life and send money back.
PAOLO VO
That’s such a common story - a father or a mother coming on their own to Canada - to work and gain a foothold for a few years, before sending for their families to join them. A very common immigrant experience for new Canadians.
TINA VO
It sure is - and her family’s story takes a very sad turn a few years after they moved here.
MP
we then moved to Kingston, Ontario, because my mother's family all lived in Kingston and still do. And so she wanted the support of family. And so we took the VIA train across the country.
And it was easier there because we had lots of cousins and lots of aunts and there was a bit of a Portuguese community there that we were able to to relate to and connect with.
TINA VO
And it was in Kingston, when Marcie was 14, that her father died suddenly at the age of 45.
PAOLO VO
Oh my goodness that’s a terrible loss.
TINA VO
It absolutely was, and in those years between living in Vancouver and moving to Kingston, her parents had three more children, so her mother was now a single mother of seven children.
PP
Oh my goodness.
TP
They stayed in Kingston for a while, and when Marcie was 15 her eldest brother married and moved to Toronto.
And he and his wife bought a big house in the Leaside neighbourhood actually
MP
It's a very middle class, very white neighbourhood, at least it was at that time.
TINA VO
And her brother invited his Mom and his siblings to move in.
MP
it was a challenge because we went from living in a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We were poor. To living in a very middle class white neighbourhood. It was just it was very different.
Paolo VO:
You know, it's interesting to hear Marcy refer to the neighbourhood as being white. You can hear she means different from herself. And beyond the neighbourhood just with all the moves alone, that is a lot of change for such young kids to deal with. No wonder it was overwhelming.
TINA VO:
It really was. And Marcy found the high school experience actually really stressful, where she was just one of two kids of Portuguese descent. So she spent a year there but decided that she was going to finish high school through evening courses so she could actually work during the day to help support her family. And when she was 17, she enrolled at Centennial College to study community development. And that's where the seeds of her life's work were really planted.
MP
one of my instructors was a woman called Miss Secord, who I would have a lot of debates with her in class.
And she at one point said to me, you know, you should think about working in your own community. And I looked at her and said, What do you mean? And this is how I discovered Kensington Market. And she said, You need to go work in Kensington Market. You need to go and be amongst people that you have something in common with because, you know, you might have a lot to offer. And so I did. And I was 17 years old, but I went to St. Stephen's.
PAOLO VO
St. Stephen’s is really a vital part of Kensington Market isn’t it?
TINA VO
It sure is. It has served as a community and social justice centre since the early 1960s.
PAOLO VO:
And what a wonderful community to discover, particularly if you are from Portugal because there are a lot of Portuguese who live and work in that community. I grew up not far from there, in Little Italy, and my first playmate was my next-door neighbour, a Portuguese boy my age. I can still remember the scent of charcoal and sardines from their weekend barbecues - Portuguese are master grillers - and - speaking of Kensington Market - I mean, talk about a richness of fragrances from around the world.
TINA VO:
Oh, absolutely. I have a connexion to it. I lived there when I was in my early 20s, actually going to Ryerson. Now, this would have been the mid eighties and what a neighbourhood to discover if you're an out of towner and and even more so if you're Portuguese.
PAOLO VO
What were her first impressions of the neighbourhood?
TINA VO:
She was completely taken with it. All those familiar sights and sounds and smells of home!
MP
Well, at that time, they were still selling live chickens. It was a very vibrant market. Lots of Portuguese stores, still some Jewish run stores there, probably a couple of Italian stores that were there. But it was it was just so vibrant.
It was you really felt like you could smell food from everywhere. And it was just it was just a beautiful place to be. You know, that was alive. It just felt alive.
And I decided at that point I was going to leave home. And and it was it was hard because those days nineteen year old Portuguese girls don't leave home to live by themselves or with their boyfriends. And I had been working. My mother had a really hard time. She didn't understand this concept. And, you know, she was very religious woman and would pray that I would change my mind.
PAOLO VO
That must have taken a lot of courage. I have aunts and cousins who struggled with this in our Italian immigrant family - yeah moving out was something you just didn’t do in those cultures, especially at that time.
TINA VO
Definitely. And I’m sure it’s still an issue in many families across all sorts of cultures.
But Marcie was determined. So she called in a few reinforcements to help convince her mother.
MP
I was working with three missionaries who were very active in the community. We were working with a project called Cleaners Action advocating for immigrant women who are working as cleaners in downtown Toronto, fighting for their rights.
And I asked them if they would help me through this process of leaving home. They came, three of them. Went to my house and sat down with my mother, they brought a priest friend of theirs and I sat down and assured her that I would be OK, that they would take care of me, that Toronto is a big city, but I would be in good hands.
And the priest, you know, said a few prayers with my mother and gave her a little blessing and everything was fine.
The next day I woke up and by the floor of the bed was a cast iron pan as a wooden spatula and a knife. And that was her way of saying, OK, I got it. You're going. It's OK.
PAOLO VO
To me, that's just like a scene out of a novel, isn't it?
TINA VO
Yeah, it's a beautiful image. And and it and it just contains so much about family and love and home. I just I love that image.
But even though she had her Mother’s support, the times were different, and there was some blowback over her decision to live on her own in Kensington.
MP:
But I actually lost a couple of friends as a result of moving out. A couple of my -actually my maid of honour - her mother was dead set, opposed to my moving out. And this was girls didn't do much because girls didn't do this. And so I actually lost a couple of friends whose parents forbid them to be with me. Yeah.
You know, I wasn't I wasn't ready to go off and just get married and have babies. I wanted to live my life. I wanted to experience things. I wanted to do different kinds of work and within the sector. So it was a great experience for me and it really shaped who I am today.
TINA VO
One of the first jobs she took on was at St. Christopher’s House, another settlement and community support centre in Parkdale, which is a little West of Kensington. She’d heard about it through the missionaries who spoke with her mother.
St. Christopher’s was really active at the time in organizing around workers’ rights for cleaners - mostly immigrant women at the time - women who worked in hotels and offices. Marcie’s Mom in fact had worked as a chambermaid in Kingston.
MP:
So they they established a programme called Cleaners Action and this was a programme to advocate for these women's rights in the workplace.
So I often got sent, because I was the youngest, got sent into union meetings on the on the pretence that I was someone's daughter just to hear what was going on in the union meeting and to make sure that they were getting the correct information and truthful information.
So in those days, the employers would give their workers an hour off at the end of the day and the women would agree to stay an extra hour or so for two hours. I would go into workplaces and teach English. A number of us did that. So really good grassroots work.
PAOLO VO
Gosh this is really front line work she was doing and it’s such rich training ground for what she would be focusing on throughout her career.
TINA VO
Yes and you know she got her Mom involved as well, which really made Marcie realize the real impact it can have to bring women together to support one another.
And at one point, Marcie invited her Mom to join in with one of the events she was organizing for St. Stephen’s House.
MP:
I was doing community outreach and community engagement. And one of the projects that they gave me to do to handle was organising the First Community Festival in Kensington Market.
And my mother at this point was living in an apartment with my other siblings downtown Toronto. And so I invited my mother to come and help me to come and help cook for the day some Portuguese food. And she she came and she was, you know, for the first time I saw my mother happy. And, you know, you know, you see the difference when someone's in a place where there's there's a lot of connection. And I saw her smile for the first time in a long time. It was so that just did it for me.
She was amongst other Portuguese women who immigrated to Canada who had similar experiences, who, you know, may have lost their husbands or had a lot in common. And so I saw her happy and I saw the power of collective work and bringing women together who can share a common bond and support each other. And that's when I decided that's it. And this is so I've been doing this work ever since.
PAOLO VO
You know, that's that's amazing. You know, it really speaks to what is the definition of community, right?
TINA VO
It really does, yeah. Yeah. And Marcy's career, it's always been rooted in building stronger communities. She spent several years with the labour movement, but always found her way back to Working Women's Centre, actually.
And as Ana Bailao explains, her focus on building supportive, inclusive communities is continuing with a major housing development underway in Scarborough.
Ana Bailao
One of the things that she's been working lately is in an area of the city that is going through major redevelopment is called the Golden Mile. And so she's been working with the local community,and the developers that are going to be developing thousands and thousands of units, a brand new community. And she's been at the table leading conversations about how to make sure we build inclusive communities and communities that are welcoming also for the newcomers, the new residents of Toronto. So we're very, very lucky to be the beneficiaries of of Marcie’s work.
PAOLO VO
That's Toronto city councillor Anna Bailao speaking about Marcie Ponte. It's it's just so amazing, Tina, to hear about these these hardworking, selfless women, true heroes who might not be household names, but maybe should be. For the incredible positive impact that they've had on life in Canada. Thanks so much for sharing the story, Tina.
TINA VO
Thank you, Paolo.
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