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Weekend Newsstand: May 9, 2015
Get out to see the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit at the AGO if you haven't yet, because after Sunday it's gone. In the news: the challenges facing women released from jail, the importance of coordination between City officials and farmers' markets, and a baby born in Toronto via a new form of IVF.
Women living in Toronto after leaving prison often face substantial pressures that can tempt them into reoffending. It can be daunting to re-enter formal society and forge a new path: the cheapest neighbourhoods also suffer the highest crime rates (which, for some women, are their home neighbourhoods, meaning they have social networks that may still be involved in crime) and there is little government support. The Elizabeth Fry Society, which advocates for women in prison and has helped many women secure housing and move on to school or careers, has had to reduce the services it offers women who are released from jail. “If you assist a woman,” said Elizabeth Fry Toronto executive director Gemma Napoli, “you’re assisting her family, and then you’re assisting the community. You’re not just helping her.”
The closure of the Riverdale farmers’ market, which the City took over in 2011, points to the necessity of working with vendors to make markets a viable place for them to sell their wares. One farmer told the Globe and Mail that around 75 per cent of their sales come from farmers’ markets in Toronto, and that these local pop-ups are the reason their family has been able to continue farming. But without cooperation between local government and farmers—facilitation in finding spaces, proper parking and other permits, and sometimes selling wines—these markets can’t thrive.
A Toronto couple was the first to give birth to a baby using a new in-vitro fertilization treatment known as Augment IVF. The method involves using the mitochondria of “egg precursor cells,” which haven’t yet developed into eggs, to jumpstart existing eggs; as high school science should have taught all of us, mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cells. Several other couples using Augment IVF are expecting babies to be born in the coming months.