by Donna Kennedy-Glans When you see pictures of fully veiled women in ultra conservative Muslim countries, you may be tempted to conclude that the men in these countries see women as powerless. Well, that theory about the weaker sex has been blown wide open! A senior cleric in Iran is convinced that last month’s earthquakes [...]
Canada's Oilsands: Light at the end of the pipeline
Thursday, February 18th, 2010by Donna Kennedy-Glans This industry is killing us; the tar is clogging up our systems and causing cancer. Greedy companies are deliberately understanding the negative impacts. They act like they care but they are just wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. It’s a cash cow and nobody has the guts to shut it down! Lobbyists earn [...]
Resilient Leadership
Monday, February 15th, 2010by Donna Kennedy-Glans As executive director of a Canadian-based volunteer organization and registered charity (Bridges Social Development), I’ve been inundated with surveys from pollsters seeking to quantify the impacts of the recession on Canadian charities. What these surveys tell us will surprise no one: corporate and government funding for charities is down, needs in communities [...]
CBC radio
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009by Donna Kennedy-Glans Canada’s foreign policy is all about how we deal with “The Other.” How do Canadians choose to relate to “Other Nations,” “Other Worldviews,” “Other Faiths?” There are, essentially, three ways to deal with “The Other,” suggests well-known journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski in his book by the same title: We can attempt to assimilate [...]
In Yemen, the disaffected need alternatives
Monday, April 27th, 2009by Donna Kennedy-Glans Globe and Mail President Hamid Karzai’s recent backsliding on women’s rights in Afghanistan caught Canadians off guard. Emotions remain frayed, and the situation has prompted reflection about Canada’s role – indeed, the role of any middle power – in containing extremism beyond its own borders. Of course, the Canadian military is committed [...]
Lifting the secular veil
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008by Donna Kennedy-Glans “How do you conduct business in the Muslim world after Sept. 11?” I am encouraged by this question posed to me recently by an intrepid class of university commerce students. They didn’t ask “if” you could do business in the Muslim world-they had not, like some, fallen headlong into the wide chasm [...]
Beyond Polarity
Monday, October 1st, 2007by Donna Kennedy-Glans I worked for decades as a lawyer and then corporate executive in the international extractive sector. In this role, integrity dilemmas were plentiful. When a North American company invests in an oil, gas, gold or diamond project in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East or frontiers in the west, the “right” [...]
VIP FORUM: Tools for making your corporate contribution count
Thursday, February 1st, 2007by Donna Kennedy-Glans As a management sherpa, and more recently as executive director of a humanitarian organization, I’ve been invited to hundreds of community investment and philanthropic initiatives championed by Canadian oil and gas companies. Whatever the location of the community investment project—Canada, the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America—every responsible corporate manager [...]
Gender jihad: Enhancing female access in politics
Tuesday, October 31st, 2006by Donna Kennedy-Glans Yemen’s 2006 election was not only a barometer of pluralism in the Arab world, but also, a barometer of hope within Yemen. The September 2006 election results in Yemen mark the first time in modern Arab history that a president was seriously contested by an opponent with substantial popular support. The election [...]