One of those rare meetings

Rock Demers - Godfather of the Guild Visual educator

One of those rare meetings

Along the path of life, we occasionally have the privilege to discover someone with a universal heart, like Dr. Sima Samar, to whom the Canadian organization Rights & Democracy awarded the John Humphrey Freedom Award on December 10, 2001.
THIS REMARKABLE LAUREATE KNOWS THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

Despite the trying years lived by her people, Dr. Samar, physician and educator, continued her work in the face of everything, including gunpoint.

Thanks to a faithful following, she secretly accomplished her task even with all the risks she faced. Her relentless quest has allowed a SMALL number of children, especially girls, to be educated, some of the destitute to be healed and refugees to be protected.

In 1989 Dr. Samar founded, in Quetta, Pakistan, Shuhada, whose mission is to save Afghan peoples in or outside the country. Her enterprising actions mostly help women and girls. Plans are now underway to educate boys, who will have access to civil instruction, not just religious as under the Taliban.

On December 24 schools reopened their doors and children who had been deprived for five years rushed through them. They are crowded into windowless, waterless rooms, unheated between 8 a.m. and noon to take advantage of the winter sun. What an abomination! In the coming years we will learn under what psychological conditions these future citizens will have to perform.

The Gingerbread Guild cannot be indifferent to such a situation. Thanks to its Educators Without Frontiers committee, The Guild is working on an educational support program. You will soon know more, and hopefully many of you will participate.

Did you know that in Afghanistan:

- One third of children are orphans.
- One quarter of children have only one parent.
- Only three percent of girls go to school.
- Fifty thousand children work in the streets of Kabul.
- Thirty five thousand of them are injured by land mines.

The list of horrors goes on. After such reports, we must focus our efforts on the building of a Global Village under the sign of PEACE.

Louise Mathieu-Mills

Rock Demers
Godfather of the Guild; Visual educator

Since the 1950s, Rock Demers has quickly become a fixure of the Quebec film industry. His accomplishments are countless: he launched the film magazine Images, started several movie clubs, directed the Montreal International Film Festival from 1962 to 1967, helped to establish the Cin�math�que Qu�b�coise�

The founding of Faroun Films began his rich career producing films for young people. His distribution of carefully selected movies in dozens of countries established youth cinema as an integral part of the 7th art. He continued with this passion until 1980, when he created Productions la F�te, whose main accomplishment is the unique collection Tales for All.

Ever since, Rock Demers has received honours and awards, and rightly so, but above all he remains a pioneer of quality children�s cinema. Whether conceiving, directing, distributing or producing, alone or in partership, all his films are captivating, entertaining and educational. His movies distributed the world over by Productions la F�te have charmed and sensitized an ever-growing and more conscientious audience, thanks to his non-vulgar and nonviolent works.

The Guild is especially touched by the construction of works which bridge cultural barriers. The example of Rock Demers, dedicated creator and teacher, leads us down an essential path : that of philanthropy.