15 Minutes with Dean Brody

Reader’s Digest: On your new album, Beautiful Freakshow, you incorporate different styles like rap and pop. Is experimentation something you think about before working on a new record?

Dean Brody: Because of all the influences I have, I probably should think of keeping myself within boundaries. But when I write a song, I’m just singing along with a guitar and not thinking about it. I write about what’s fun and what’s on my mind. This record definitely has traditional country, but production-wise, it’s really cinematic. The title track, for example, was inspired by Quentin Tarantino. It’s almost like a movie of his in song-form.

Unlike most country singers, you write your songs alone without co-writers. How come?

I co-wrote with people in Nashville for six years, but I’m more comfortable by myself. When I’m in a room with people, my ideas don’t stick. Because I’m quiet by nature, I just ended up going home and writing my own songs. It’s a real personal thing for me to take a song from nothing and make it something.

You performed a song called “Time” at the CCMAs. What’s the inspiration behind it?

I read a quote that’s often credited to Buddha – “the trouble is you think you have time.” There’s so much packed into that small little phrase, and there’s a lot of different chapters in life you could write about that speak to that quote. We think we have tomorrow or the next ten years, but we work so hard to survive, and it’s easy to get caught up in the business of life and forget about people. We need to slow down and take time.

Speaking of the CCMAs, you’ve won your share of awards over the years. Do award shows make you uncomfortable or have you grown to like them?

A little of both. I’m certainly uncomfortable making speeches, but at the same time, it’s exciting. I have a team of around 60 people that work on my behalf and that are behind-the-scenes, so I feel like I’m winning one for the team and that it’s something they could be proud of. I understand the world of awards is sometimes political, as are a lot of things out there, but it’s meaningful for sure.

You’ve been across Canada on several tours. What’s your favourite part about that experience?

I love being able to see our whole country in a compressed amount of time. We’re in a different town every day, sometimes multiple cities. It gives you a real appreciation for how diverse we are, geographically and culturally. It’s almost like a bird’s eye view. And in that short and intense amount of time, you’re in contact with locals, and you’re invited to community places and parties!

You live in rural Nova Scotia. How does it compare to life in Nashville?

It’s a lot warmer, that’s for sure. I just got back from Arizona and we were walking around cotton fields with our shirts off, and now I’m all bundled up in Vancouver. Nashville is a great place where everyone comes to learn. It’s almost like a green house. You’re surrounded by people who are weird like you, and in a small town, you might not have people around you can make music with. Going to Nashville gets my fire going.

You’ve established the Dean Brody Foundation, which helps in the rescue and rehabilitation of young girls who are victims of human trafficking. Can you talk about how that came to be?

I read a book called Remember Me, Rescue Me by Matt Roper, a British journalist. He spent seven years in Brazil, living in different towns where these girls were exploited in the sex trade. I was really moved by the book and said, “Hey, Matt, is there anything we can do?” He said, “I know a lot of amazing Brazilian nationals who would love to have the ability and the funds to help.” We now work with both girls and boys, their families and entire towns – it’s multi-layered.

As someone who comes from a country and folk background, how do you feel about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize in Literature? 

Music is a special medium and such a big part of our culture. When you match music with words and a narrative that people can connect with, the combination can be a powerful thing.

Dean Brody’s new album, Beautiful Freakshow, is available now. 

Against a twinkling backdrop of pinlights and plush curtains, a cluster of kids and young adults dance to the sunny strains of Pharrell Williams’s “Happy.” Some are assisted in their movements by parents; most look like they never want to leave the stage. They’re here thanks to one woman: Geetha Moorthy, the founder and executive director of Toronto’s South Asian Autism Awareness Centre (SAAAC).

The performance, part of a fundraising gala held this past March for SAAAC, was a showcase of what the centre works hard to achieve. “In our culture, people with autism are typically hidden away,” Moorthy says. “To be dancing in front of a crowd of 1,000 is an amazing thing.”

Born in Sri Lanka and trained as an accountant and a traditional Indian dancer, Moorthy moved to Canada in 1983 with her husband, settling in Montreal, then Toronto. She found a job in the payroll department at Nestlé and started teaching dance as a hobby. By 1990 she’d taken on 150 students-enough for a production-meets-fundraiser to collect money for children’s charities.

One of those charities, the MukiBaum Accessibility Centre, asked her to lead dance workshops for clients with autism. Dancing improves balance and encourages eye contact, and the intricate hand gestures involved in traditional Indian choreography help develop motor skills. The classes would also facilitate non-verbal communication among participants.

Moorthy noticed that few South Asians attended the workshops. “There’s a stigma within our community; many believe the family of a child with special needs is being punished for a past wrongdoing,” she says. “This leads to denial and a lack of awareness of treatments.”

A solution presented itself in 2008 when a visiting Sri Lankan doctor offered to conduct an information session about autism for South Asian families-if Moorthy helped.

Twelve families showed up to hear basic facts about autism: what it is, its symptoms. It was the first time many of the attendees had partaken in culturally sensitive services.

Word spread. The next session, two months later, had 25 families. Fifty came to the following one. Moorthy soon realized she needed to offer more than information.

In 2010, SAAAC’s inaugural gala raised $25,000. As the group grew, so did its space; its current home, in the suburb of Scarborough, Ont., is a 465-square-metre building that houses programs for 190 families.

At the centre, there are case managers, translators (Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Urdu), workshops on navigating the medical and education systems, respite care, outreach and therapists-most of it free-for people of all ages. There are also art classes, music lessons and, of course, dancing.

When Shanthi Rajaratnam’s two children were diagnosed with autism in 2003, at ages four and five, the family had difficulty accessing services. Four years later, they moved from Montreal to India to try herbal treatments presented as cures. By 2012, Rajaratnam’s marriage was over and her son, Thambi, had grown violent, attacking both her and his sister.

On the advice of a sibling who had heard of SAAAC, Rajaratnam flew back to Canada. “Geetha came to us right away,” she says. Thambi was placed in a group home, and the family began receiving support at the centre.

Connecting with other parents of austistic children has been a balm for Rajaratnam. “Being able to talk to each other about challenges is such a relief,” she says. Recently, she met up with other adults at a restaurant while their kids were at the centre.

That afternoon, Moorthy’s name came up often. Though she also manages operations and handles financials, the SAAAC founder has remained the first contact for many families. “We all said the same thing: ‘Praise Geetha,'” says Rajaratnam. “Whenever you call, she answers.”

Among the photos dotting the walls of Rob Rai’s office in Surrey, B.C., is one of a beaming, burly young man in a cap and gown. The new grad towers over Rai, who is flashing his own grin. A decade earlier, in 2005, this vignette was a distant hope: the young man was on the brink of wasting his potential – and possibly his life.

Rai, who at 42 has spent over 10 years working with Surrey’s youth, knows better than most that at-risk teens are frequently drawn to the flashy lifestyle associated with the city’s gangs. Kids barely out of grade school can deliver drugs and pocket more than $200 a day. But that fast cash sucks them into a turf war that has turned Surrey – which has the highest rate of youth poverty in Metro Vancouver – into a grim backdrop for drive-by shootings.

After earning a diploma in investment management at the University of British Columbia in 1996, Rai landed a desk job with a not-for-profit that educated children on environmental issues. It wasn’t the right fit. “I would be doing boring paperwork and see my co-workers hanging out with the kids,” says Rai. He successfully lobbied his director for a hands-on role and later worked with homeless teenagers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In 2005, newly hired by the Surrey School District’s Safe Schools Department, Rai was assigned his first case file: it belonged to a Grade 7 student who had been expelled for bullying and theft of school property. The young man in the picture.

Rai made a home visit and chatted with the boy’s mother in Punjabi, disarming the family with his calm manner. For a year, the outreach officer and his charge met twice a week. Rai, who believes “you are what you put your time into,” took the boy to drop-in basketball and floor hockey sessions, nurturing a passion for athletics that would lead to amateur wrestling titles and, eventually, university.

Within four years of that first case, Rai launched the Surrey Wraparound Program, funded by Public Safety Canada and drawing 17 staff members from the Surrey School District, the City of Surrey and the RCMP. At any one time, Wrap provides individual support to nearly 100 youth, ages 11 to 17. “You end up wanting to take them home,” says Rai. “And the kids don’t want to let the adults down.”

Much of Wrap’s success hinges on addressing issues simultaneously. Staffers might take kids to counseling appointments, but they’ll also help participants’ parents secure employment-like the time Rai raised money so one mother could become a Zumba instructor.

Family participation is a key factor in discouraging-or encouraging-gang involvement. (Rai estimates that of the 400 Wrap kids past and present, at least 50 have fathers or siblings who were shot in gang-related confrontations.) Raised by a single mom, Tuan revered his gang member brother and was dealing drugs by Grade 7. But then Wrap member and RCMP constable John Wilson entered his life, driving him to classes and finding him a tutor. Seven years on, Tuan has finished high school and dreams of starting a plumbing business.

Tuan is just one of Wrap’s triumphs. After graduating from the program, participants are 67 per cent less likely to have a run-in with police. Wrap has been used as a model for school systems in Nova Scotia, the Prairies and cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles.

And the bonds formed last long after the files are closed. Take, for instance, the young man in the photo. Now 23, Jessy Sahota emulated his mentor after completing a degree in criminology. “This is grassroots prevention,” says Sahota, who keeps tabs on a dozen youth every day as a Wrap school liaison.

For Rai, the next best thing to taking a kid home is bringing him to work.

Gareth Henry was 15-years-old the first time he had to uproot his life because of who he was. Growing up in St. Mary, a rural enclave on Jamaica’s northern coast, he realized his attraction to other boys might endanger him, especially in his small community. In Jamaica, acts of male homosexuality are punishable with up to 10 years in jail. In 1993, brave but bewildered, he left his sister, mother and grandmother and set out for the nearby city of Kingston.

Once there, Henry immersed himself in activism. He became a founding member of J-FLAG (the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, AllSexuals and Gays), and when the head of that organization was stabbed to death in a homophobic attack, he volunteered to replace him. “I was in my early 20s, a naïve little boy, and I said, ‘Okay, I will.'”

The increased visibility made Henry a target, and in 2007, police beat him in front of 200 bystanders. He went into hiding soon after, but his aggressors tracked him down and threatened to kill him. That’s when Henry knew he had to flee again-this time, at the age of 30, beyond his country’s borders.

Henry arrived in Canada in early 2008. Because of his profile as an international gay- and lesbian-rights advocate, he was granted asylum.

But even as Henry adjusted to his new life, his mind turned to others who weren’t as lucky. “I had a place to live, I had support-which is what I hoped there would be for every refugee,” he says.

That’s when Henry connected with Rainbow Railroad. Started in 2006 by grassroots activists, the Toronto-based group was worried about state-sanctioned violence against members of the international LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community. The organization’s goal, says founding member Michael Battista, was simple: “to help people make it from a place of danger to a place of safety.”

Applicants must be living in a country where homosexuality is criminalized; from there, volunteers cross-reference details with contacts on the ground and members of local LGBT groups and, in many cases, follow up with interviews over Skype. Rainbow Railroad then provides funds, guidance and information to persecuted individuals looking for refuge in countries with a progressive stance on LGBT rights-primarily in Western Europe and North America.

Things moved very slowly for the first two years of Rainbow Railroad’s existence, according to Battista. But Henry’s arrival as a volunteer in 2009 marked a turning point. “We started working with him to identify those most at risk in Jamaica, and he was very effective at referring people facing real threats thanks to his on-the ground connections.” By 2013, Henry had helped 36 individuals from the Caribbean gain asylum in Canada, just as he had.

Rainbow Railroad has expanded dramatically since its inception. In 2014, the group handled more cases than ever before, funding the airfare and travel of 33 individuals from Jamaica, Nigeria and Uganda. (It also provided basic supplies to asylum seekers in hiding prior to emigration.) In 2015, staff fielded 281 pleas from would-be claimants that flooded in through various channels, including email, social media and community organizations. Rainbow Railroad is currently working on creating safe “routes” throughout the Middle East and South and Central Asia.

While the organization offers vital financial and administrative assistance, it’s often the psychological and emotional support that means the most to asylum seekers. That’s also at the heart of why Rainbow Railroad is so important to Henry. “What they’re going through is my lived experience,” says the man still shaken by the murder of 13 friends during his four years with J-FLAG.

Henry, who knows first-hand the sacrifices that can be involved with daring to live fully, dreams of seeing Rainbow Railroad bridge continents. “I want to build safe houses around the world, create resources, help LGBT people get a second chance at life. I want them to be able to be their authentic selves.”

In 2007, Stephen Flynn uncovered a dilemma. Through his job at a Vancouver employment service centre, he knew low-income men moving back into the workforce needed clothes for job interviews and construction sites. He was also aware they couldn’t afford to buy a suit or work boots without a source of income. Non-profits like Dress for Success were helping women prep for the office, but organizations providing a similar service to men were rare.

“So why don’t you set one up?” a colleague challenged him. “If I do, will you help me?” Flynn asked.

Within six months, Flynn, then 46, and a coalition of staffers from employment agencies across the city had started Working Gear. Originally run out of a cramped storage room, the charity supplies clients with professional attire, whether the men are headed to an office or a building site. Now based in East Vancouver, Working Gear’s spacious headquarters are packed with racks of clothing, shelves of boots and a change area: “We want our customers to feel like this is a store and they’re here to shop,” says Flynn.

The men who come to Working Gear for appointments – often nervous about getting suited up and reluctant to take too many items-must be referred by job counsellors at agencies like the Open Door Group. That’s where program and financial-support specialist Launa Gallant assists residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a neighbourhood with an unemployment rate of more than 11 per cent, about twice the overall rate of the rest of the city. During the course of a year, she sends approximately 100 men to the charity for outfits that will make a good first impression on employers and boost the job seekers’ confidence levels. “By a conservative estimate, the new clothes improve our clients’ chances of securing employment by more than 80 per cent,” says Gallant.

For Andrew Fredericks, 30, the referral to Working Gear came from staff at the halfway house where he lived after being released from prison. In 2012, for an interview as a door-to-door marketer, he picked out a slim-fit grey suit, shirt and tie. He left feeling “super happy-I didn’t know I would be that comfortable or could look that good in a suit.”

Though he didn’t get the marketing job, Fredericks returned to Working Gear as a volunteer; three years later, he’s a restaurant owner and yoga teacher. “There should be more of these places around,” he says.

Open six hours a week, Working Gear serves approximately 800 men annually-and a few women who need construction duds. With Vancouver building sites running year-round, there’s work for skilled labourers, but positions in warehouses, landscaping and on sites require applicants to wear steel-toed boots, even when dropping off a resumé. The cost-$100 to $200 per pair-can be prohibitive for the unemployed. Boot drives pull in hundreds of used but useful work boots donated by large companies or members of border services, who receive new steel-toed footwear each year. Safety gear, such as reflective vests, goggles, gloves and hard hats, is provided by the government body WorkSafeBC, while many of the suits come from Moores, which runs an annual campaign to collect lightly used professional clothing from its customers.

The satisfaction of meeting a clear need keeps Flynn-who now assists elderly clients at British Columbia’s Public Trustee office-involved in Working Gear, both on the board of directors and as a volunteer in the shop. “When they see that person in the mirror, when they hear from us how good they look,” he says, “they really can visualize themselves at the meeting or on the job site.” Wearing their new clothes, the men stand tall, smile and walk out into the world.

For Kim Duffy, sending away her teenage daughter was the best hope for saving the girl’s life. Corinne, then 17, had been struggling with bulimia and anorexia for more than five years; treatments at home in Toronto had been unsuccessful. Duffy and her husband, Terry, found a residential facility in Virginia, and Corinne signed on for a two-month stay in the summer of 2009.

It would take another five years before Corinne arrived, as she says, “at a good place.” Today, at 24, she’s healthy and pursuing a master’s degree in Colorado. She and her parents believe the holistic approach, individualized focus and immersive structure of her treatment were key to her recovery. And they know they had access to unique resources. “We were fortunate,” says Duffy. “We could pay for everything.”

But many can’t. According to a report released in November 2014 by the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, between 600,000 and one million Canadians meet the diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder at any given time. Mental health issues with severe physical ramifications, anorexia (which has a mortality rate of between 10 and 15 per cent) and bulimia (which has a mortality rate of five per cent) are difficult to treat. Public inpatient programs often won’t admit patients until they’re in life-threatening condition, and many respond poorly to the one-size-fits-all approach.

Private clinics often have epic waitlists and prohibitive costs: at Homewood, in Guelph, Ont., a room is $305 to $360 per day.

The Duffys’ struggle led them to connect other families with the quality of care they received in the United States. In late 2013, they founded the WaterStone Clinic, a private eating disorder centre in Toronto.

Since the facility opened, 170 clients have received treatment. They take yoga, do art therapy and participate in meal prep, building real-life skills with an empathetic support team. Programs run weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and notably, so far WaterStone has no waiting list.

But this approach is costly: approximately $650 per day. Cognizant that the price tag puts WaterStone out of reach for many, the Duffys created the WaterStone Foundation-a charity that provides aid to patients who can’t afford treatment-the following year. Candidates are assessed by two committees that make a decision based on clinical and financial need. Since 2014, the foundation has helped 10 people at the clinic that shares its name; it now offers assistance to clients of Homewood and hopes to do the same with a facility in Manitoba.

David Choo Chong was the first to benefit from the foundation’s generosity. Now 23, he entered the WaterStone Clinic in March 2014. The Torontonian had tried many programs over more than five years, but none was successful; eventually, his illness compelled him to cease his studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and move home.

Despite Choo Chong’s initial skepticism, he thrived once he began working with a therapist who specialized in dialectical behaviour therapy, which helps people manage their distress.

But a few months in, the cost-$50,000 thus far-forced his family to consider pulling him out. The foundation offered to pay 50 per cent of the fees for the next phase of his treatment. Two years later, Choo Chong, happy and stable, is completing his degree. “WaterStone helped me come into who I am,” he says.

Duffy also wants to change the public system. In June of this year, the foundation awarded $170,000 in grants-generated from private donors-to four Ontario hospitals working on novel initiatives for eating-disorder patients. “Yes, people need private treatment,” she says, “but it’s important to help out on a broader scale, too.”