Our speaker will be Jodey Porter, Membership Chair of Rotary Club Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Jodey Porter’s incredible life has taken her all over the world into situations far removed from our lives in Canada.
Jodey is a very active member of the Niagara-on-the-Lake community. Currently she is the International Service Director of Rotary Club Niagara-on-the-Lake. Her other volunteer work includes many years with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), President and founder of the Low Vision Association of Ontario, Chairman of the Board Advocacy Resource Centre for the Handicapped, (ARCH), and executive member Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. She has also been a member of the Board of Directors for more than a dozen charitable organizations in the arts, health, advocacy, the Niagara Symphony Orchestra, Anglican Church Ministries Foundation (ACMF) and various World Health Organization committees (WHO).
Prior to her retirement, Jodey had a remarkable and varied career in leadership roles in public service, which included: Assistant Deputy Minister of Health for the Province of Ontario; Ontario Human Rights Commissioner, for three terms; member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission; Executive Director, Canadian Diabetes Association; Director of Development Canadian National Institute for the Blind; and numerous other roles.
Jodey will talk about the “accidents in life” that lead to new discoveries. We all have moments of disappointment, of loss, of confusion, and of disorientation through our lives. The amazing thing is that so often these are not closed doors but open doors. The issue of disability, one each of us will face in our lives either personally or through family or friends, is one of these closed doors. Jodey will focus on characters in our world who have literally changed the way we live and how we look at the world, even though their world seemed shot by disability. Join us to be inspired by a talk full of humor, adventure, travel, and the promise of hope.