The Music Garage, the first annual lecture of the Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Lecture: Janusz Korczak, the Father of Children’s Rights, Turning Rights into Action series, took place on November 11, 2016 at the University of British Columbia.

The distinguished speakers were Hélène (Sioui) Trudel, lawyer and Dr. Gilles Julien, social pediatrician who are the founders of a transdisciplinary practice group supporting global health for children and youth in Montreal. Please see the Invitation to the Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Lecture for the detailed program. We are thankful to Ms. Trudel and Dr. Julien for allowing us to include their presentations on this site. The event was very successful and the lectures were followed by a vibrant discussion. The program was moderated by Dr. Charles Ungerleider. The audience was welcomed by Dr. Mark Beauchamp, Associate Dean, Research, Faculty of Education, UBC and Jerry Nussbaum, the president of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. The main presentation was preceded by the award of a certificate to Claudia Diaz, the recipient of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada Graduate Scholarship for 2015/16.

The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada would like to express their appreciation to the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Prof. Blye Frank for his vision in the context of the holistic approach to the wellbeing of children. Thanks to that vision we are now able to extend the How to Love a Child the Janusz Korczak Lecture Series and to progress from the discussion of the reality of the child wellbeing in Canada today, to discussing solutions in the new Lecture Series: Janusz Korczak, the Father of Children’s Rights, Turning Rights into Action.

Dean Frank has committed the Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Lecture to create an annual event dedicated to examining solutions to the execution of the rights of the child. We inaugurated this program with the invitation of two prominent advocates, Ms. Hélène (Sioui) Trudel and Dr. Gilles Julien who presented their holistic approach to helping children realize their full potential.