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Grannies in the News


-  Grannies turn over recognition card in push for action on generic drugs published in The Low Down to Hull & Back News — September 29 - October 5, 2010(Mark Burgess)

-  Great Granny Revolution: Rose Letwaba published in the April 2009 issue of Sandton Magazine, South Africa (Michelle Loewenstein)

-  Original Grannies off to South Africa to show revolutionary doc film published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News —February 10 - February 26, 2008 (Rachel Dares)

-  Granny revolution continues on multipples fronts published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News —July 4 - July 10, 2007 (Josh Clipperton)

-  The Great Granny Revoulution comes to Winnipeg published in the Manitoban (Jacqueline Hogue Staff)

-  Wakefield May Day fest draws a thousand published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News —May 9 - May 16, 2007 (Josh Clipperton)

-  RAWQ awards go to W’field Grannies and keeper of Gatineau Hills history published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News —May 9 - May 16, 2007 (Josh Clipperton)

-  When Wakefield met South Africa published in the Ottawa Citizen —May 5, 2007 (Don Butler)

-  Wakefield Women published in the Australian magazine Your Life —Autumn 2007

-  Viva la Granny revolucion!published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News — Apr. 11 - Apr.17, 2007

-  Fourteen-year-old guitarist stages concert for teen AIDS victims published in the The Low Down to Hull & Back News — Feb.14 - Feb.20, 2007

-  South Africa: The granny revolution published in Irin/Plusnews — September 2006

-  African grannies amazed by beauty of Wakefield published in The Ottawa Citizen — August 2006 (Don Butler)

-  The great granny revolution published in the Ottawa Citizen — August 2006 (Don Butler)

-  Inspiration for national aid movement returns to Wakefield published in The Low Down to Hull & Back News — July 2006 (Ian Lordon)

-  Local filmakers document grandmotherly compassion from Wakefield to South Africa published in The Low Down to Hull & Back News — May 2006 (Rowan Lomas)

-  Child psychologist Dr. Nina Minde from Montréal: Facing the impact of HIV/AIDS in South Africa published on the Canadian International Development Agency Website

-  Rose Letwaba on ’As It Happens’ broacasted on CBC Radio in spring 2006

-  African grandmothers care for kids orphaned by AIDS Canada AM, by CTV.ca News Staff— March, 2006

-  Grannies reach out to Africa published in the Ottawa Citizen— March, 2006 (Jessica Wilson)

-  Tales of bitter loss and new hope published in the Globe & Mail— December 2005 (Stephanie Nolen)


This section's articles

Published in the Low Down to Hull and Back News

Inspiration for national aid movement returns to Wakefield

by Ian Lordon
When South African nurse Rose Letwaba first visited Wakefield 18 months ago she couldn’t have known she was sowing the seeds of what would later become a national movement in Canada. But that’s exactly what grew out of her first visit, and now she’s coming back to the village with three South African grannies in tow for a Granny Gathering Aug. 15. “The very first granny group began in Wakefield and now there are 45 groups across Canada. None of us ever dreamt it would explode like this,” Gathering organizer Brenda Rooney said. “Wakefield should be (...)

CTV Canada AM:

African grandmothers care for kids orphaned by AIDS

Canada AM, by CTV.ca News Staff They are overlooked members of society and unrecognized heroes. They are the millions of African grandmothers looking after their orphaned grandchildren with little money, little food and little help. But while these women bear the enormous emotional burdens, few around the world do anything to respond to the orphan crisis. Some 14 million children have been orphaned by AIDS in Africa, and the number continues to rise. To put that into perspective, that is more than all the children in Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark combined. Canadian (...)

African grannies amazed by beauty of Wakefield

Published in the Ottawa Citizen
By Don Butler Wednesday, August 16, 2006 In her real life, Petronella Makhanya lives in the Johannesburg slum of Alexandra Township, where she struggles to raise four AIDS orphans ranging in age from 20 months to 14 years. Yesterday, rather miraculously, she found herself standing on Linda Gorka’s lawn in Wakefield, Que., eating samosas and salads, enjoying the finest view in town. Ms. Makhanya, 57, is one of three South African grandmothers — known in Africa as gogos — visiting the village as guests of the Wakefield Grannies, a group that’s supporting 10 (...)

Canadian International Development Agency Website

Child psychologist Dr. Nina Minde from Montréal: Facing the impact of HIV/AIDS in South Africa

Canadians Making a Difference in the World When Nina Minde accompanied her husband, Klaus, to South Africa on his university sabbatical, she “hoped I might be able to make myself useful, if I’m lucky.’’ Volunteering at a children’s mental health clinic in the township of Alexandra, Nina was shocked to discover the extent of the ravages of HIV/AIDS. More and more children attending the clinic were being brought by their grandmothers because their parents were dead or dying from AIDS. According to UNAIDS, one out of five, or 5.3 million, South Africans is (...)

Fourteen-year-old guitarist stages concert for teen AIDS victims

Following in the footsteps of the Wakefield Grannies, Chelsea guitar prodigy Julian Geisterfer is playing a little music for the soul and holding a benefit concert for AIDS orphans in Africa. "I was touched by the plight of teenage orphans in Africa who are left to raise their younger siblings after their parents died of AIDS" says the 14-year-old guitarist. "I saw what the Wakefield Grannies were doing to help grandmothers in South Africa, and I thought we can do the same for teenagers." CHILD2CHILD The Child2Child benefit, an afternoon of jazz, blues and classical music, comes to the (...)

The Ottawa Citizen

Grannies reach out to Africa

Marilee Rhody’s eyes well up with tears when she speaks about the struggles of a grandmother who’s raising AIDS-orphaned grand-children in South Africa. “It’s the women who often bear the brunt of Africa’s burden, and this is no exception” the Wakefield women and fellow grandmother said yesterday “ I have the utmost respect for them.” Mrs. Rhody is speaking of Maria, the grandmother Mrs. Rhody has been assigned to support through a program she and 10 other Wakefield women began last fall. After Rose Letwaba, who works as a nurse (...)

Grannies turn over recognition card in push for action on generic drugs

By Mark Burgess
From the austere chambers of the Foreign Affairs building on Sussex Drive to the halls of the Canadian embassy in Rome, the Wakefield Grannies are being recognized for their work in combating HIV / aIDS in Africa. Far from resting on their laurels though, the group is continuing to push for wider access to generic drugs. Members of the Canadian Club of Rome, a group of ex-pat that helps Canadian network in the Italian capital, decided they wanted to help fundraise for the Grannies and flew Theatre Wakefield producers Brenda and Robert Rooney over for a gala screening of their documentary (...)

Granny revolution continues on multiples fronts

By Josh Clipperton
The May Day celebration put on by the Wakefield Grannies this spring, which brought together other granny groups from across the region as well as hundreds of participants, was considered a great fundraising success. But some might be wondering, for all the baking, selling and eating done at the event: where does that money go? Well, here’s the answer. The Wakefield Grannies have been partnered for the last two years with a granny group in Alexandra, a slum of 170,000 on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. They give money to the group to try to better the lives of the (...)

SOUTH AFRICA: The granny revolution

JOHANNESBURG, 8 Sep 2006

Published in IRIN/PLUSNEWS
It started with three South African grandmothers sharing their grief at the loss of their children and supporting each other to care for their orphaned grandchildren. Five years later, their group in Alexandra, a Johannesburg township, has grown to 40 and spawned dozens of others spanning two continents, sparking what some are calling a ’granny revolution’. (Photo: Kristy Siegfried/IRIN) On the opening day of the International AIDS Conference in Toronto last month, the three original Alexandra grandmothers led a march of 300 women through the streets of the city to raise (...)

Published in the Low Down to Hull & Back

Local filmakers document grandmotherly compassion from Wakefield to South Africa

By Rowan Lomas
A grandmother hangs laundry with a baby on her back before bathing three more children, feeding them breakfast in a one-room apartment and getting them off to school. This scene of children orphaned by AIDS and the grandmothers who look after them in South Africa will be part of a documentary by Lac-des-Loups’ Robert and Brenda Rooney. They returned from the AIDS-ravaged Alexandra Township shantytown earlier this month after three weeks of shooting the final footage for their upcoming documentary The Great Grannie Revolution, which follows the Wakefield Grannies’ relationship (...)

Original Grannies off to South Africa to show revolutionary doc film

By Rachel Dares
Parenting a child is one thing. But parenting a child who’s lost both parents to HIV /AIDS is quite another. That’s one lesson the Wakefield Grannies have learned since partnering up with the Alexandra Gogos, a group of South African grandmothers who got together to support each other in raising their AIDS-orphaned grandchildren. A part from the grandmothers’ worries that they may not live to see their grandchildren reach adulthood, raising children in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Township is a challenge to begin with because of inadequate housing and infrastructure, (...)

RAWQ awards go to W’field Grannies and keeper of Gatineau Hills history

Two Gatineau Hills residents and a famous bevy of ladies are to be celebrated by the Regional Association of West Quebecers at the group’s awards banquet June 1. But even though they are to be honoured, two had no idea they’d been nominated until they were notified that they were winners. Chelsea’s Jay Atherton, Cantley’s Beryl Kerrison and the Wakefield Grannies will be honoured at the event for their volunteer work. Atherton says he’s not sure who nominated him, but he has an idea. Regardless, he’s appreciative. “I was very pleased. Surprised, (...)

CBC Radio

Rose Letwaba on ’As it Happens’

AIDS has been ravaging families in South Africa for years. The disease has orphaned around seven hundred and fifty thousand children in the country. Often the task of caring for these children falls on ill, aging grandmothers - some of whom are also HIV-positive. Today, the Stephen Lewis Foundation launched "Grandmothers to Grandmothers" - a campaign to raise awareness and win support in Canada for Africa’s grandmothers. Rose Letwaba is the head Psychiatric nurse at the Alex Tara Children’s Clinic in Johannesburg. She is also the founder of the Gogo Granny Outreach Project, a (...)

in The Globe and Mail

Tales of bitter loss and new hope

JOHANNESBURG — This is my favourite story about Mpho. Her granny, Magdalene, who has raised her since her mother died of AIDS when Mpho was only 2, belongs to a support group for grannies raising orphans in the township of Alexandra in Johannesburg. That support group gives the grannies a little something each month — a food parcel or maybe a bit of money to spend on drugs or nutritious food. One day a year ago, Magdalene was too sick to go to the meeting, and she sent Mpho to collect the monthly donation. That day, it was 100 rand — about $20. And Mpho picked it up (...)

Published In The Ottawa Citizen

The great granny revolution

By Don Butler
Sunday, August 13, 2006 One day, an army of grey-haired women may quietly take over the Earth. — Gloria Steinem In a room in Ottawa’s Bell Street United Church, the Wakefield Grannies are waiting. Spartan wooden chairs are arrayed in an anticipatory circle, and bare tables are laden with pastries, somosas and fruit juices. The outside temperature is sinking with the late-March sun, but the room vibrates with warmth and barely suppressed excitement. For the 11 women who make up the Wakefield Grannies, this is a triumphant day. Their brilliant idea — the idea that (...)

A few good grannies

The Great Granny Revolution comes to Winnipeg

“Never forget that you’re talking about human beings.” - Angélique Kidjo On Sunday, April 22, Stephen Lewis, the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, spoke at Crocus Plains High School in Brandon. Lewis spoke about Canadian and South African grandmothers getting together and supporting each other. He also called his audience to action to counter Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic. I attended his lecture not knowing exactly what to expect, but more than a month later his words and dreams were still echoing in my ears. I have never (...)

Viva la Granny revolucion!

First screening of Great Granny doc set for May 5 By rowan Lomas The movement won the hearts of villagers, grandmothers in South Africa, the United Nations’ Stephen Lewis, and some say even the world. And now friends and neighbours will get to see the film that documents this huge success story of the heart right where it all started. The Great Granny Revolution, the new documentary from wolf lake’s Rooney Productions that follows the story of the Wakefield grannies and their counterpart in Alexandra Township, south Africa, will have its world premier at Wakefield May Day (...)

Wakefield May Day fest draws a thousand

By Josh Clipperton
Wakefield’s sun drenched May Day celebration brought together about 1,000 of the usual suspects and a few new ones. The Wakefield Grannies - along with other granny organisations from both sides of the Ottawa river- gathered at the recreation centre fair grounds May 5 to raise money for charity and usher in the re-birth of spring. “it’s a day to celebrate our solidarity as a group” says Granny Brenda Rooney. “The idea is a group of women coming together to achieve so much and a community coming together to achieve so much.” The Wakefield Grannies (...)

Wakefield Women

Story by Pamela Oddy
Published in the Australian magazine Your Life, Autumn 2007 edition The more I read about her (and there’s plenty on the Internet) the more I regret not meeting Norma Geggie when she visited Australia in April 2006. She wasn’t here having lived in Canada since the mid-1950, she came simply to spend time with family. Among those she caught up with on this occasion was her niece and my best friend, who told me about Norma’s passion, the Wakefield Grannies. This group of grandmothers of all ages first came together in Quebec in 2004, after Rose Letwaba spoke at Wakefield (...)

When Wakefield met South Africa

Saturday, May 05, 2007 There’s a scene near the end of The Great Granny Revolution, Robert and Brenda Rooney’s new documentary about the Wakefield Grannies and the movement they helped inspire, that speaks to the special qualities of the eclectic Gatineau Hills community north of Ottawa. In the scene, Rose Letwaba, the South African nurse whose visit to Wakefield three years ago started everything, is speaking to a full house at the village’s United Church. "If everyone was like the people of Wakefield," she tells the audience, with heartfelt sincerity, "the world (...)