www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday April 14, 2007 - 3 Grandmothers helping grandmothers oomama's Sherry Ardell is part of a growing world-wide movement that believes one person can make a difference By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Sherry Ardell says she is not a leader and she is "so not a fundraiser," yet she keeps jumping in with both feet since coming to Oakville a short time ago. And she is succeeding in a big way -- so much so that it has changed her own outlook as well as the lives of others. From assisting to better the plight of women in Afghanistan to creating a solidarity between Canadian, and specifically Oakville women, with those in Africa, Ardell is feeling a real sense of accomplishment since befriending long-time women's rights advocate Bev LeFrancois upon moving to Bronte. Right now, Ardell is at the forefront of an upcoming May 10 fundraiser that will see the well-known Stephen Lewis speak about the dying continent of Africa -- and the grandmothers being left to deal with it. Lewis will take the stage at Appleby College at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 10 and the general public is invited with a suggested donation of $50 per person. Tickets are available (with tax receipt) by calling Kathy at 905-849-7075 or Donna at 905945-8915 or visiting www.oomama.org. Ardell is heading the organization of the fundraiser on behalf of oomama (pronounced omama), the Oakville edition of a growing Grandmothers for Grandmothers movement that has answered a call from the Stephen Lewis Foundation. "Grandmothers have emerged as the unrecognized heroes of Africa. These magnificent caregivers bury their own children and look after their orphan grandchildren, calling on astonishing reserves of love and emotional resilience; but do so with almost no support," said Lewis, chair of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, author of Race Against Time and recent UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. The foundation has some 15 project ongoing in Sub-Saharan Africa which has more than 60 per cent of all people living with HIV, a total of 25.8 million people -- nearly the entire population of Canada. Many of the 14 million orphaned children have come into the care of LIESA KORTMANN / OAKVILLE BEAVER SOLID: Oakville resident Sherry Ardell is a member of oomama, an Oakville-based group that will host Stephen Lewis as guest speaker at Appleby College on Thursday, May 10 as a fundraiser for the Stephen Lewis Foundation. The foundation's Grandmothers Helping Grandmothers project aims to assist African grandmothers raising their grandchildren as the orphans of the AIDS epidemic. their grieving, ailing, and now much poorer grandmothers who lack even food. The African grandmothers have found themselves charged with raising a generation of orphans that numbers 14 million and is climbing. "For the first time in my life I'm seeing that a few people can make a difference. I'd never thought that before. I'd never seen it before," said Ardell. Though new to Oakville, Ardell has plunged into the oomama cause. It wasn't long after its founding little more than a year ago that she held a Hadassah Bazaar-like sale at her home -- in her single car driveway -- and raised $22,000 for the cause. "Oakville is small enough to get your arms around it," said Ardell who for the last four years, has made her home with husband, Bill, near the lakefront in the West Harbour area. Ardell proudly displays a book commemorating a three-day workshop conference held in Toronto last summer on the eve of the AIDS conference where 100 African grandmothers met 200 Canadian grandmothers. On their agenda was a host of workshops on everything from grieving and depression to lobbying and moving past stigmatization. "I would say it was one of the highlights of my life," said Ardell. At the end of it, the grandmothers delivered a statement to the United Nations and present- ed it to the AIDS Conference, which was just beginning in Toronto. Ardell said she was impressed by the articulation and wisdom of the African grandmothers she met. "I wouldn't call them fragile," she said, noting they are what she called "powerful women" who have successfully lobbied for changed legislation in their homeland. "I don't want to portray these African grandmothers as being fragile in any way," said Ardell. Still, there remain many obstacles to overcome for them, as there are for many people, particularly women and children, around the globe. In a cultural climate that doesn't afford many African women many rights, they are being called upon -- and rising admirably to the challenge -- of burying their children and then raising their grandchildren orphaned by AIDS. It was upon hearing Lewis speak at a church in Oakville that a group of 14 women, including Ardell, founded oomama in November 2005. At that time, there were two other such groups in Canada. Today there are more than 150. While it has been billed the dawn of a new movement, Ardell said it's really a women's solidarity movement that's not only national, but international. "I am not a fundraiser. I am so not a fundraiser," said Ardell who is nevertheless at the heart of the same. Ardell, having worked in the social services field and teaching, with Children's Aid societies and in English As A Second Language (ESL) settings, had lived in Mississauga, Toronto, Montreal, even Ireland, before settling in Oakville in retirement. "I am not a leader," she asserts, though she is at the forefront of the local oomama cause. Ardell befriended strong Oakville women, achievers in the field of women's rights, such as LeFrancois and Karyn Burney. Ardell then became involved with Canadians In Support of Afghan Women (CSAW), which has been responsible for putting 5,000 Afghan girls in school. It has sent $300,000, a huge amount in Afghanistan, to do so and set up a library network. It was with some of the same women that Ardell heard Lewis speak. Ardell and her husband first came to Oakville to fix up and sell a condominium owned by a family member in Bronte. They stayed there a few months and that's where Ardell said she met LeFrancois and a group of other women. 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