Annual Courage 2001

Recipients:

• Patrick Baynham, Youth
• Mary Williams, Physical Rehabilitation
• Penny Keene, Mental Health
• Fred Milne, Chemical Dependency
• Freda Ens, Economic Adversity
• Kristy Coueffin, General Medicine

Patrick Baynham, Youth

Patrick Baynham, 18, of Victoria, has been named the 2001 Courage To Come Back award recipient in the Youth category. He will receive the award at a gala dinner in Vancouver on Thursday, May 3, 2001.

Patrick was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a cancer of the blood, as a four year-old and underwent more than three years of treatment before the disease went into remission.

After four years, his cancer reappeared. He suffered some brain damage as a result of undergoing cranial radiation. Despite having this learning disability, Patrick is an honour roll student.

He's also an accomplished actor who starred in a Canadian Tire commercial at age 11 and has since become a veteran of the stage and musical theatre. "I can kinda sing now," he says, noting that appearing in musicals "lets you be a goof on stage and act much larger than life."

Patrick has been a counsellor at Camp Goodtimes, a supporter of the Cops for Cancer program and a participant in the Terry Fox Run. He's organized fundraising events for the Help Fill a Dream Foundation and Ronald McDonald House. He'll graduate from Belmont Senior Secondary School this June and intends to enter an acting program at Capilano College beginning this fall.

"The support of my family," he declares, "has made me a stronger person."

Mary Williams, Physical Rehabilitation

Mary Williams, 49, of Vancouver, has been named as recipient of the 2001 Courage To Come Back Award in the Physical Rehabilitation category.

Below her neck, Mary cannot move a muscle. She's what's called a "high quad", a quadriplegic. She has been one since a 1975 motorcycle accident when, as she says, she "zigged instead of zagged". Now Mary spends her days in a wheelchair and her nights on a ventilator.

But Mary Williams is a picture of ability, not disability, and of independence, not dependence. She has her own apartment, hires her own attendants to help with physical care, zips around town and lives a full life. Originally consigned to an extended care institution, she battled hard to live on her own; now she battles just as hard to help others.

She is a board member and past president of the B.C. Coalition for People with Disabilities, for whom she's active in a number of projects which aim to meet the needs of individuals with disabilities. "People's needs," she says, "are different in every case; institutions, agencies and governments need to recognize that." She is a board member of the College of Occupational Therapists of B.C. and of DAWN (the Disabled Women's Network) of Canada.

Mary's grace and courage has touched us all.

Deceased October 5, 2001

Penny Keene, Mental Health

Penny Keene, 67, of Vancouver, has been named the 2001 Courage To Come Back award recipient in the Mental Health category. She will receive the award at a gala dinner in Vancouver on Thursday, May 3, 2001.

Penny literally had it all and lost it all. A Registered Nurse, she married a doctor and spent 12 years in Namibia (then South West Africa) living well. She moved to Vancouver and became a successful director of public relations in the hospitality industry.

In 1981, she had her first manic episode, experiencing the highs of bi-polar disorder but not the lows. Then she went into deep depression. "I lost everything," she says: family, friends, career. She lost count of her stays in hospital.

By 1994, living in a boarding house, Penny Keene began to turn her life around, working as a cleaning lady for three years and volunteering with the Vancouver Symphony. She took training and became a mental health peer support worker, designed courses and became coordinator of the Richmond Peer Support Program. She has been an active public speaker on mental health issues, a hard-working participant in committees and projects and the creator of the "Acting Up" program to teach self-esteem to mental health consumers. In 2000, she was honored with a Canadian Psychiatric Association award for leadership in mental illness awareness education.

Penny is now recovering from hip-replacement surgery. "I thank God every day for everything that I have," she says.

Fred Milne, Chemical Dependency

Fred Milne, 47, of Port Coquitlam, has been named the 2001 Courage To Come Back award recipient in the Chemical Dependency category. He will receive the award at a gala dinner in Vancouver on Thursday, May 3, 2001.

Fred grew up in Victoria in a dysfunctional alcoholic home. ("My parents did the best they could," he says, "my father is 30 years clean now.") The boy found solace in a progression of substances. "Eventually," he says now, "heroin became my drug of choice."

Several years after his first arrest, Fred was jailed at 19 and spent the next two decades in and out of prison. Fred Milne hit bottom in December 1995, when he took enough heroin to kill himself. He was revived by paramedics, helped by friends at a detox centre, found his faith in God, got a job and started on the long road to come back and give back.

In 1996, he opened his home to recovering addicts. Today, Resurrection House (for men) and Glory House (for women) operate to end addiction in eight locations with 72 beds. Fred, now happily married to Janet, dreams of opening further facilities for women with children. "Right now, it's a Catch-22," he says, "admit your addiction; lose your kids. Don't admit it and you may well condemn those kids to becoming addicts themselves. We need to provide homes, not institutions, to help these people."

Freda Ens, Economic Adversity

Freda Ens, 44, of Vancouver, was named today as recipient of the 2001 Courage To Come Back award in the Economic Adversity category.

Freda is the Executive Director of the Vancouver Police Native Liaison Society, but she grew up in Massett, Haida Gwai. "I was the only adopted one of 10 kids," she recalls, "for as long as I could remember, I'd been told my mother sold me for a bottle of beer." She ran away from her abusive household for keeps at 16. She moved to Prince George and worked at low-paying jobs.

At 22, she got married. "I thought he was my knight in shining armor," she says now. "I told him all my dirty little secrets; he regarded me as damaged goods." Freda Ens left the marriage in 1988 and moved to Vancouver. She and the kids would go "binning" - searching through garbage - to make ends meet because welfare was not enough for survival.

Afraid of losing her two children (now 17 and 15), she wanted desperately to get off welfare. Freda got her high school diploma and then, in 1990, certification as a family violence and community counsellor. She volunteered at the Native Liaison Society and started there full time in 1991. The society responds to 10,000 contacts per year, assisting crime victims and acting on behalf of the disadvantaged.

Freda Ens is proudest of her children who, with her strength and their own, have broken a generational cycle of violence and despair. "Every single person," she says simply, "is valuable."

Kristy Coueffin, General Medicine

Kristy Coueffin, 20, of Kelowna, has been named the 2001 Courage To Come Back award recipient in the General Medicine category. She will receive the award at a gala dinner in Vancouver this Thursday, May 3, 2001.

Kristy had her first epileptic seizure at a friend's house when she was six years old. She underwent many different tests as the severity and frequency of seizures increased, as did the injuries she suffered from hitting the floor. Ultimately, Kristy wore a helmet to protect herself.

By the time she was 13, Kristy had undergone three brain surgeries, one of which caused her some loss of function in her right arm. Today she takes 15 pills every day, a custom-designed mixture to reduce the number of her seizures. Some days, she says, she has no seizures at all.

Kristy graduated from high school in Revelstoke in 1999, attended college until her disorder made it impossible, and now works as a volunteer to help some of the 40,000 other British Columbians who suffer from epilepsy. She's made numerous speeches and public appearances, and will soon take further training as a speaker on the subject. She's completed training with the B.C Epilepsy Society to lead a support group for young people afflicted with the disorder.

"My message is simple," Kristy says: "You really can have a decent life despite epilepsy. I've done all kinds of things I was told I couldn't do, so I'm living proof of that."