Recently I travelled to California to meet with Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle. After interviewing Mr. Louv he turned the camera around and interviewed me! The post below is a blog that I submitted for the Child and Nature Network and a link to that interview.
Late last year I was contacted by a teacher in Ontario about a book she was writing on Canadian kids making a difference. Her name is Sheneeza Kanji. She interviewed me over the phone and researched my work on-line. In the end, she wrote a chapter about me and the people and subjects of my films. She has just had the book published and it is available as an ebook or in hard cover. Part of the proceeds of the book sales will go to the favourite charities of the kids who are showcased in Sheneeza’s book. So by purchasing a book you’ll also be helping some great causes. Here is a profile of Sheneeza and the links for ordering copies of the book.
Click here to order from Indigo/Chapters
Click here to order from Amazon
Sheneeza Kanji was born in Guyana and moved to Ottawa, Canada at the age of five with her family. After completing an Honours Degree in Psychology at Carleton University, she went on to study education at the University of Ottawa. As a teacher in the Ontario public schools, she saw a need for children to grow as more empathetic individuals. Rare stories of children who displayed “extreme” examples of compassion were emerging in the Canadian media and Sheneeza used these stories as the inspiration for her first book . Sheneeza is dedicated to writing non-fiction material that will serve to educate and inspire children to look within themselves in forging a path of empathy and compassion for others. She has travelled extensively throughout the world, visiting impoverished communities in India, Kenya, Turkey, Morocco and Egypt among others. In recent years, she, her husband and four children have undertaken “family give-back vacations” in which orphanages are visited, eco-tours are experienced, and donating clothes and toys to less fortunate children are included as part of their vacation experience. Sheneeza currently lives in the Greater Toronto Area with her family.
Deer visit us all year but especially in the spring and summer. The same families return to our yard each year. One of the Moms always has twins. This is “Stuey” – one of the twins. It seems like they are so young when they have to leave their Moms and survive on their own. This “teenager” kept coming back to us because he grew up in our yard. His antlers were only three or four inches long at the time. I got a photo of him one day and painted him from the photo. I didn’t know it would be one of the last times I saw him. He probably moved on and maybe he even has a family of his own now.
Miranda Andersen 