A local healthcare system is urging the community to work harder to end homelessness and bullying.
At an event held Monday morning at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare in Windsor, it was pointed out that the two are interchangeable. The event launched HDGH's community partnership with various agencies and media companies on the Pledge to End Bullying.
Among the community partners are the Windsor-Essex chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Windsor Essex Community Health Centre, Conseil Scolaire Catholique Providence and Family Services Windsor-Essex.
HDGH president and CEO Janice Kaffer said the hospital is asking people to pledge to treat everyone with compassion, and homelessness is added to the equation because many children in poverty grow up in an environment where respect and compassion are not the norms. She said taking the pledge will start making a difference in changing that.
"Maybe then children will grow up in schools and in families where they will see that kids who have a little less and are different, are not someone to be attacked or bullied, but someone to be embraced with compassion and love," said Kaffer.
Kaffer said she grew up in a less-fortunate family, and that makes this initiative personal.
"I remember that feeling and I don't think it's changed very much," said Kaffer. "I don't think that poverty is embraced with compassion, not yet, and it needs to be. And we need to end it, and that's the other work we're doing at Hotel Dieu Grace."
HDGH said that the initiative to end bullying and homelessness begins individually. To take the pledge or receive more information, visit the Windsor page of the Pledge to End Bullying.
