Alan Rimmington used to talk for a living.

Since suffering his first stroke in 2006, the former tourism ministry employee has had trouble communicating. Words don’t come easily, and when they do, they’re often not the ones he intended.

Rimmington, 72, is living with aphasia, a neurological disorder that affects a person’s ability to speak, read, or write. It results from a brain injury and commonly occurs after a stroke.

To practise his conversation skills, Rimmington meets with other stroke survivors weekly at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare on Prince Road for the Word Exchange. It’s a free, student-run program offered through Aphasia Friendly Canada, a project of UWindsor psychology professor Lori Buchanan’s Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.

“Aphasia is really isolating,” Dr. Buchanan said. “Most people with aphasia lose their social contacts. Really, this is the worst possible outcome from a brain injury.”

Students from Buchanan’s lab facilitate the sessions, coming up with topics of conversation. They set up the chairs, make the coffee, and hand out pens and paper for participants who can write more fluidly than speak.

Spouses and caregivers meet over coffee at the same time in an adjoining room.

“The students are good for us,” said Rimmington. “Most of us are in the growing-older group, so young people are good for us.”

Rimmington used to work for the tourism ministry as an expert on the War of 1812. He’d give seminars and was often called upon to be a guest speaker at community events throughout the province.

After retiring, Rimmington and his wife moved from Peterborough to Windsor. He would keep busy with part-time work as a guide on the cruise ships that run tours on the Detroit River.

Then came a stroke, affecting his ability to speak. He said he had to give up working, and he “slowed down.” When he learned of Aphasia Friendly Canada’s conversation group, he was eager to give it a try.

“It’s a welcoming group, a place where you can chat and trade stories,” Rimmington said. “You find in regular conversations, it’s hard because you’re speaking slowly. But here, everyone understands.”

Dirusha Moodley, a master’s student in neuroscience who will begin medical school in the fall, helped design the eight-week program.

“The idea is they can interact with other individuals who have similar experiences to their own,” Moodley said. “We’re hoping this will increase their quality of life and increase their confidence when communicating.”

The conversation group is the second project from Aphasia Friendly Canada. The first involves educating service-oriented business about aphasia. Once employees are trained, the business can display a sticker in the front window to indicate people with aphasia will feel welcomed there.

Julia Borsatto, associate director of Aphasia Friendly Canada, said the training project and the conversation group go hand-in-hand.

“It’s symbiotic,” she said. “People from the conversation group can go into these businesses where I’ve done training.… It’s a way to help them integrate back into their community.”

─ Sarah Sacheli

Playwright Judith Thompson directs her own work, Watching Glory Die, produced for Windsor Feminist Theatre by former drama instructor Kelly Daniels, in a special performance Tuesday, July 23, in the Hatch Studio Theatre, Jackman Dramatic Art Centre.

The play was inspired by the 2007 death of 19-year-old Ashley Smith in an isolation cell at the Grand Valley Institution for Women.

Thompson has secured the blessing of Coralee Smith to tell her daughter’s story.

“There are many young people in Ashley’s situation all over the world, languishing in solitary confinement, with everything they cherish taken away from them,” says Thompson. “Let us no longer be bystanders.”

Daniels approached Thompson after a staged reading of the play at the School of Dramatic Art in 2017, inviting her to bring the show to Windsor and then to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

This production will hire four emerging artists and offer unpaid internship positions to 13 UWindsor students and recent graduates, but still needs to raise funds for the trip to Edinburgh in August.

Tuesday’s event will start at 6:30 p.m. with a pre-performance panel discussion featuring Thompson; Senator Kim Pate, a former executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies; and representatives of Maryvale Adolescent and Family Services and the Welcome Centre for Women and Families.

Following the play, audience members will join the cast and crew for a reception at Mare Nostrum. The evening is scheduled to last until midnight and tickets are $100, with a receipt for a tax-deductible donation of $50.

Order tickets by contacting Daniels at watchingglorydie@gmail.com. Find more details in a release on the gala event.

—Susan McKee

Zainab Ikpong is going into her fourth year studying political science and criminology at the University of Windsor and hopes to contribute to a powerful women’s movement with her new company.

Ikpong’s company is called Wigs n’ Wraps and will be selling wigs and African head wraps to females who appreciate the kinks and curls of their hair.

“I used to chemically relax my hair and I felt that my hair was suffering because of that, so I went natural,” says Ikpong. “By doing (Wigs n’ Wraps), I hope to promote the embracing of natural beauty and nurturing and taking care of one’s hair.”

Ikpong will be working with the RBC EPIC Founders program to advance her entrepreneurial goals in the 12-week program.

“I hope to learn more about what goes on behind closed doors in terms of starting and running a business, I hope to gain a lot of knowledge in that sense,” says Ikpong. “I look forward to being mentored by someone who is very experienced in entrepreneurship, as well as the networking opportunities provided by this program.”

This is the fifth in a series of articles introducing this summer’s participants leading up to a showcase of their prototypes in August at the EPICentre. Learn more on the centre’s website.

—Dana Roe

What Oliver Dong likes most about Windsor is the friendliness of its inhabitants.

Originally from China, he came to Canada to master English in preparation for graduate study in electrical and computer engineering.

“In Canada, everybody is more likely to help others,” says Dong. “You can ask for help from your neighbours, your instructors, even a man working in the road.”

He says the pace of a small city suits him: “You can enjoy your study or your leisure time — you don’t have traffic jams like back home.”

He says he has found the English Language Improvement Program hard, but useful.

“When I first came to campus, I could not even speak in complete sentences,” Dong says.

He says the most important advice he got was to learn to think in English.

“My instructor told us when we don’t know a word to check the English dictionary, rather than translate it from our own language,” he said.

The Centre for English Language Development will celebrate international language students and their contributions to campus and community on World Student Day, Friday, July 26.

UWindsor faculty, staff, and students are invited to join in free activities, entertainment, and a lunch in the David A. Wilson Commons from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The UWindsor Science Academy welcomed local secondary school students to campus July 8 to 12 for the chance to explore the science programs offered at the University of Windsor.

Science-driven high schoolers, nominated by their teachers or schools to attend the free week-long program, participated in lectures, hands-on laboratory exercises, and research lab tours.

Luca Pullo from St. Anne’s Catholic High School was one of dozens of local high schoolers nominated this summer to attend.

“I’ve always had a strong interest in the sciences,” says Pullo. “For that reason, I expressed my interest in attending, and I feel very lucky that my teacher felt I was a strong student and nominated me for this opportunity.”

Dora Cavallo-Medved, professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, runs the Science Academy and says the program helps prepare students for successful careers in science.

“We had a fantastic week,” says Dr. Cavallo-Medved. “We had 50 of our top local high school science students from 17 different schools exploring our research labs and experiencing the many engaging opportunities we offer our students. They all really appreciated the opportunity to experience life as a UWindsor Science student and catch a glimpse into their futures.”

Pullo says the experience was both engaging and informative.

“I was given a good idea of the programs available in the Faculty of Science,” says Pullo. “And it was also great to be able to see exactly what I would be doing in each program.”

On the final day of the Science Academy, each participant received a certificate of completion.

Kyla Hicks and Anumita Jain were awarded bursaries from the Friends of Ojibway Prairie to attend the Ontario Nature Youth Summit this September.

“It was wonderful seeing the students so excited to win,” says Mike Fisher, manager of web services and systems support, who sits on the organization’s board of directors. “We are thankful to everyone involved with Science Academy for making it such a great week for the students, and for helping the Friends of Ojibway Prairie become a part of their experience as well.”

—Darko Milenkovic

A UWindsor music instructor is among the members of an ensemble that will perform in free public concerts this weekend along the county’s waterfront.

The Windsor Symphony Orchestra Wind Quintet will feature Liesel Deppe of the School of Creative Arts on flute alongside oboist Faith Scholfield, clarinetist Graham Lord, bassoonist Samuel Fraser, and Iris Krizmanic on horn.

The orchestra’s summer concert series will take the group to Harbour Park in Colchester at 7 p.m. Friday, July 19; to the John R. Park Homestead in Essex between Oxley and Cedar Beach at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 20; and to Lakewood Park in Tecumseh at 1 p.m. Sunday, July 21.

The one-hour program will feature a wide range of tunes from film score soundtracks to Mozart. Organizers encourage concertgoers to bring lawn chairs, blankets, even a picnic dinner to enjoy beside the water.

Visit www.windsorsymphony.com for more information, including maps to the performance venues.

Network changes will make Internet services unavailable to and from the University on Saturday, July 27, starting at 7 a.m. and lasting perhaps a few hours, advises Information Technology Services.

Outages will encompass all network services — websites and email, UWinsite, Blackboard.

Both wired and wireless networks will be affected across the entire campus, including downtown sites. In addition, the downtown campus will lose network connectivity to the main campus during this time. Telephone calls to these buildings will not be available, but there will be a limited ability to call out.

The Research Data Centre in the Leddy Library will temporarily disconnect from its ORION connection until restored during the maintenance window.

IT Services anticipates that connectivity will be restored well before the end of the maintenance window at noon.

Campus flags will be lowered Friday, July 19, in memory of retired languages instructor Ingrid Helbing, who died July 12.

Dr. Helbing joined the UWindsor faculty in 1980 as a sessional instructor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, receiving promotion in 1990 to salaried sessional instructor level II and in 2000 to salaried sessional instructor level III, a position she held until her retirement in July 2002. She continued teaching in the department until 2012.

In accordance to her wishes, a private family memorial will take place. Find more information in her obituary online.