By Dave Thomas
Published in June 2016
It was a colourful, joyous atmosphere at the 29th Annual Mayors’ Dinner, as 850 people joined together to celebrate community builders Ari Ariaratnam and Jassy Narayan for their many decades of support of refugees and immigrant women.
Ari is well known as the founder of Focus for Ethnic Women, and Jassy as the first executive director of Better Beginnings, Better Futures in Guelph. The video tribute that was filmed and edited by the Commons Studio, demonstrated the wide breadth of accomplishments and contributions to the community that both women have offered since immigrating to Canada 50 years ago.
Barbara Rahn, who ran the area’s first regional child care centre, hired Jassy and encouraged her to pursue education. Jassy “was a natural community worker and I thought it was such a waste if she didn’t get trained,” said Barbara. “She had a natural ability to organize people, be empathetic and sympathetic.”
Dilan Singaraja, Ari’s nephew, described how Ari and her husband sponsored more than 40 family members to come to Canada to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka. He said that “Ari has always been very generous, very giving, very loving. She is just willing to help in any way she can.”
Describing Ari’s many strengths, Shobhana Ranjit from Focus for Ethnic Women said that “Ari’s forte is her interpersonal skills, her leadership, her coordination skills. But above all in all her professionalism what she uses is what we commonly disregard, and that is common sense.”
Steven Shadd, who worked with Jassy at Better Beginnings and teaches community organization at Conestoga College, said that he tells his students that “the queen of community organization is Jassy Narayan.”
Ari “sees the big picture,” said Mary Jane Brooker of the YWCA. “She is able to recognize needs, and she has a vision. But that doesn’t mean she misses the details. If you want to write a grant, she can do that, and you will probably get the money you asked for. I can also say that Ari shows unfailing respect for everyone she works with, everyone she encounters. She works with passion and compassion. She never loses her vision or her sense of humour along the way to making our community a better place for all of us.”
Describing Jassy’s role of supervising social work students at the KW Multicultural Centre, CEO Lucia Harrison said: “Jassy provides students with a lens, a way to deconstruct language, barriers, challenges. She shares with the students her own personal experiences, all with a lens towards inclusion. All the students who’ve been supervised by Jassy over the 10 years have been thrilled by the opportunity and impressed by her insights. I consider Jassy to be a pioneer who has built bridges, bridges between mainstream and community agencies, between mainstream communities and ethnic communities, between students and their educational institutions, and this was all on her quest towards inclusion. Jassy is an inspiration.”
The event, hosted by Mayors Berry Vrbanovic, Dave Jaworsky and, for the first time, Doug Craig of Cambridge, raised over $72,000 to support The Working Centre and St. John’s Kitchen.
