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Mental health

September-October 2023

A soft space to land

How a peer mentorship collective is helping early-career BIPOC artists

Alexa DiFrancesco

Three years ago, Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet and Sanaa Humayun were both working as junior employees for art centres whose staff were predominately white. Callihoo Ligtvoet is Cree, Métis, Dutch and mixed European and Humayun is Pakistani; the two friends, who co-hosted a book club together, started to talk about the isolation they felt in their respective […] More »
March-April 2023

All the lonely people

The discourse has moved on since the lockdowns lifted, but Canada’s loneliness epidemic remains

Yasmin Afshar

“I’ve been worried about you.” I heard this phrase often in the spring of 2020, when my move into a place of my own coincided with Ontario’s first round of social distancing and lockdowns. My world shrunk to 500 square feet, bound by the drafty walls of a second-floor studio in Toronto’s Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood. I […] More »
September-October 2022

Counsellors, caretakers, and cops

They're barely older than the peers they support, and they’re always on the clock. Resident assistants in Canadian universities speak up about a crushing emotional toll

Carly Penrose

The phone rings. It’s the call Alanna Stewart has been waiting for. One of her residents passed out at a party across campus. Stewart saw them down six shots of absinthe earlier in the night, so she isn’t exactly surprised. She ventures out to find the student, who is dangerously drunk, and then escorts them […] More »