One Love Gala and Awards: Rehab… by Habeeb Alli
DATE AND TIME
Sat, 2 Feb 2019, 6:00 PM – Sun, 3 Feb 2019, 12:00 AM EST
LOCATION
- Elite Banquet Halls and Convention Center
- 1850 Albion Road
- Toronto, ON M9W 5S8
- Canada View Map
Hash tag: #Rehab19
Website: https://onelovegala2019.eventbrite.ca/
DETAILS/ TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/7th-one-love-gala-and-awards-rehab-tickets-53474905883
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ONE LOVE GALA
The Gala was founded seven years ago when Chaplaincy in Canada was under serious threat. I was sitting, distraught when I heard Bob Marley’s One Love playing. In that moment the idea crystallized of an event to both celebrate our work with those incarcerated and advocate for the continuation of this crucial service.
The Chaplaincy community embraced the idea and the One Love Gala was born!
The One Love Gala serves as a keystone for the Chaplaincy community to collaborate and go beyond simply advocating for the continuation of the crucial services in Canadian Prisons to one that celebrates Chaplaincy and its ability to rehabilitate incarcerated individuals.
We can only learn to love if we are prepared to forgive and be forgiven.
This year’s theme is the Rehab!
It will be an evening of speeches from chaplains and ex-inmates, award presentations, testimonies from Interfaith Chaplains and political leaders, an exquisite dinner, live entertainment, and a silent auction. Our Keynote address is an award winning Chaplain from USA Tahera Ahmed- this is an event you do not want to miss.
Dress Code: Formal Gala Wear. Color Theme: Red, Black or Gold
Theme: Rehab After party theme: #HAVEFUN!
AGENDA:
6:00 pm Doors open and Social Program: 6:45pm to 9pm
MCs of the evening Tushar Unadkat-Master of Ceremony, internationally celebrated, multiple award-winning media personality and Sauliha Alli of U of T President of HOSA
Awards: 5 Award Presentations (Malcolm X, Tayyibah Taylor, Ghulam Sajan, Lyla Ali and Carl Jadunandan awards presented to former inmates who have successfully reintegrated)
Awardees (1-Joey Twins- Cree woman freed after 27 years; 2-Warren Gambino- freed after 11 years; 3- Joseph; 4-Motiar Mohamed; 5-Chaplain Orev Katz)
7:45 pm Dmitri Kavanich – Presentation and Musical Performance – Founder of Looking at the Stars- taking classical music performances in prisons.
8:00 pm Dinner: Indian Halal Buffet
8:30 pm Keynote speaker from USA- Tahera Ahmed- Director of Interfaith Engagement and Associate University Chaplain, Northwestern University.and former RIS speaker who is a graduate in Islamic Theology and first woman to recite Quran in the White House!
9:00 pm to 1:00 am: Entertainment
Live Perfromance – Naqi Bilgrami- Best of Mohamed Rafi
Dj Robtronics- after party all night!
Door prize: Amazing prizes
Silent Auction: Sponsored by Silent Auctions Canada, http://www.silentauctionscanada.com/
Funds raised will go towards the registered Charity called Looking at the Stars Foundation- that provide free classical music inside prisons and hospitals.
Comments
Media Release -2019-01-07
7th Annual One Love Gala – Rehab
Saturday, February 2nd 2019 at 6:00 p.m. at Elite Banquet Hall, 1850 Albion Road, Etobicoke, ON
(Toronto, ON) Former inmates, current chaplains, award-winning leaders and entertainers will be coming together for the 7th year in a row.
This year’s keynote address will discuss: The indispensable nature of Diversity Chaplains in the Canadian Prisons! The Keynote will be delivered by the Associate Chaplain and Director of Interfaith Engagement at Northwestern University, Tahera Ahmed.
The Gala was founded seven years ago when Chaplaincy in Canada was under serious threat. The Chaplaincy community collaborated together in order go beyond simply advocating for the continuation of the crucial services in Canadian Prisons, to one that celebrates Chaplaincy and it’s ability to rehabilitate incarcerated individuals.
In Canada, the criminally convicted and jailed individuals may get a second chance. This is reflective to the teachings of our Faiths. Chaplains do not sit in the jury box nor are in the business of judging even the convicted. We have witnessed that many inmates who were once behind-bars have successfully reintegrated into society. Their stories inspire us all. For many, these transformative years have renewed their faith and given them a chance to forgive. We will celebrate their success on their journey of redemption.
One Love Gala 2019 Rehab will be held on Saturday, February 2nd 2019 at 6:00 p.m. at Elite Banquet Hall, 1850 Albion Road, Etobicoke, ON. The name of the gala was inspired by Bob Marley’s song, One Love!
A number of inmates and chaplains as well as entertainers are in the line up.
Charity of choice this year is Looking at the Stars Foundation that take classical music into prisons for free.
For more information or for interview requests please contact:
Habeeb Alli or Julianne Martin
Co-Chair Chaplains and Event Organizers
Direct: 416-823-1738
Email: bookhabeeb@gmail.com
Website: onelovegala.org
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/OneLoveCanada150
Early Bird Special – Save $10 – Purchase before Jan 19th.
https://shoutout.wix.com/so/a5MXFXD7_?cid=7be0df08-9cfc-49ce-b970-f7bbf07da868#/main
Participation in our democracy seems to be driven by the instant-gratification worlds of Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and the 24-hour news cycle. We’re using modern technology to revert to primitive kinds of human relations. The media knows what sells – conflict and division. It’s also quick and easy. All too often anger works better than answers; resentment better than reason; emotion trumps evidence. A sanctimonious, sneering one-liner, no matter how bogus, is seen as straight talk, while a calm, well-argued response is seen as canned and phoney. It reminds me of the old practical joke: Why do you take such an instant dislike to people? It saves a lot of time.
What happened to factual, down-the-middle reporting? That’s hard to even define, between truth and lies, gets murkier every day. We can’t survive without a free press, dedicated to preserving that fine line and secure enough to follow the facts where they may lead. It means when you find a mountain to expose in one person or party, you have to pick a molehill on the other side and make it into a mountain to avoid being accused of bias. Folks from both sides of the 2 party system should look at the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” They’ll learn how to live and let live.
HATRED CORRODES THE CONTAINER
ITS CARRIED IN
I heard this a few days ago and made it this headline
It’s very applicable today with the poisons of all kin’
The social network should be a place of sanity
But all they crow, sow and preach is brutality
Some are just out to make darn mischief and trouble
With their smartphone drinking their double-double
They should spend their time on other troubling issues
Like the refugee problem, the homeless and child abuse
I’m sure they are adept in their dog’s po-po sniffing
In a home needing airing and a good shampooing
The word hatred, rhymes with dead
Indeed it has brought so much woe
From the beginning of the get go
Hatred and envy, friends of greedy
From the very beginning, of the days of reckoning
When Kane slew Abel, this I think was no fable
Then Adam went and ate the forbidden fruit
Since then man start eating leaves and root
Some take away and some others demand
Then they start to covet one another’s land
There’s so much hate amongst men
Who are so different from women
If we had more women at the helm
We would not have this problem
But men deliberately do keep women
From the top jobs only good for lichen
Or so they think, cause they stink
Or are they really very afraid
She can be more than a maid
And would be better, than their jet setter
That she has better skill, and have more of a will
To negotiate for peace, really mark her crease
Where peace is the concern, and not leave us to burn
Look at the history of war, at home and very far
Men’s choices suck in every clime
They screwed everyone all the time
War driven stubborn and very mulish
Peace is something they don’t relish
The men at the top have failed mankind
They have to be a woman they can find
To right the wrongs of the world
And let sanity for once unfurled
In this so-called modern world generation
Only a few centuries ago of emancipation
When the Pilgrims came and set up house over here
In North America being kicked out from over there
Giving them with the Indians their first Thanksgiving
Then putting the blacks into slavery and the rest is history
They were white saw nothing wrong with black slavery
Like the Indian slavery, they herded them into the reservation
It was really Apartheid but then it was called Segregation
Yes these are the folks who once owned slavery
These are the same people managing the 2 party
They are the corroded containers of hatred
And you naively thought slavery was dead
Think again the Democrats hate every Republican
The blacks still hate the whites opposing as they can
The politics reveal dumb contentions over every triviality
And the poor taxpayer suffers alongside very senselessly.
Let’s examine the truth of this dictum
And really make sure it’s not so dumb
The latest Baby Boomer generation was a failure
Kids with weakness and a stubborn streak of anger
They gave us drugs and a laissez-faire attitude
Their kids were fat and pompous and darn rude
The containers of corrosion of every city
Since then our society has lost its sanity
Our politicians’ behaviours went down the drain
Our men and women argue as if they have no brain
The global nicety has gone and we’re only warring
We’ve become nations at times fighting over nothing
Kids leave their homes in their teens as they lie so sly
Would sleep on the pave waiting for their parents to die
These are the last remnants of our corroded containers
Our present-day politicians, civil servants and lawyers
No wonder the world is in such a very sad state
Its because we’ve not eradicated the darn hate
We’re still struggling to draw a line of demarcation
As we continue to suffocate our mental regurgitation.