Stories of Resilience with Ronald D. Ghitter

Join us for a stories of resilience session on Friday, March 10th at 1:00PM Mountain Time with Ronald D. Ghitter, who will share with us his experiences, wisdom and reflections on the work to advance human rights and what younger generations need to strengthen our impact.

Ronald is one of the founders of the Dignity Forum, a non profit initiative to combat racism and improve human rights protections in Alberta. He has also had the opportunity of being involved in the development of human rights policies over the past 45 years. His experiences include: sponsoring the Individual Rights Protection Act as an MLA in the Lougheed years (1971-79); chairing the Committee of Tolerance and Understanding appointed to examine our educational system in light of the Keegstra ant-Semitic teachings; framing policies as a Director of the Chumir Foundation to encourage the government to act forcibly in dealing with human rights issues and speaking at various conferences highlighting the need for priorities in these matters.

Ronald has been the recipient of a number of awards for his work in the Human Rights field including the Alberta Human Rights award from the Alberta Human Rights Commission and the Gerald L. Gall Human rights award  from the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights. 

Coming into the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we see there are many struggles that continue to confront our local and global communities. While we have international human rights law and foundations to guide us, we have a long way to go to actualize these rights and bring peace to our communities and world. The rates of hate and intolerance are growing, poverty is deepening, and Canadians are only now beginning to reckon with our deep history of genocide.

“If there is to be perpetual peace in a world of nation states, the individuals who live in them must be free, their human rights must be respected.” John Peters Humphrey

We thank the New Horizons for Seniors Program for enabling us to host these spaces of learning with our Elders.