Acadia University student Alex Dulay’s foray into entrepreneurship came under the most dire of circumstances.
When Dulay was 10, her mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Needing money to pay for treatments, Dulay, who is originally from the Philippines, started making crafts that a brother sold on Facebook, which helped pay for some chemotherapy treatments.
But Dulay’s mother died of cancer two years later. That same year, one of Dulay’s brothers died in a car accident. And, at 14, her father died because of health issues.
“Over the years, I kind of use that as my motivation to just keep on living, just making them proud,” said Dulay, 21.
Now living in Nova Scotia, Dulay is one of this year’s eight recipients of the Frank H. Sobey Awards for Excellence in Business Studies, a $45,000 scholarship given to a select group of students studying business at Atlantic Canadian universities.
Dulay, then 11, is shown with her mother in a 2014 photo. (Alex Dulay)
“Looking back into everything that has happened in my life and everything that I’ve been through, it was just such a surreal moment,” said Dulay. “Twelve-year-old me would never even realize that I’m capable of doing, accomplishing something like this.”
Looking back on the Facebook rainbow loom business, Dulay said the experience gave her some optimism, teaching her that there are many good people in the world. While there was no set price for the product, she said people often were generous knowing how the money was to be spent.
These are some of the rainbow looms Dulay made to raise money to pay for her mother’s chemotherapy. (Alex Dulay)
After the death of Dulay’s dad, she began living with an aunt in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
At 16, she and her sister immigrated to Canada to live with another aunt who had already settled in the tiny francophone community of Meteghan in southwestern Nova Scotia.
Dulay is wrapping up her third year at Acadia, where she is pursuing a bachelor of business administration, majoring in entrepreneurship and innovation.
Touching Hearts
She’s also working on a startup called Touching Hearts, which aims to provide fair wages for Asian artisans. Their products will be shipped to Canada and sold through a website here. As well, 50 per cent of the profits will go back to the people who made the products, said Dulay.
The name of the business is inspired by a quote Dulay’s mom was fond of.
“Some say life is too short, others say it’s too long. I know nothing, but it does make sense if we touch the hearts of others while it lasts,” said Dulay.
This quote fuels Dulay.
She also said it speaks to who her mom, who was a school principal, was as a person. Dulay said she still receives messages from former students talking about the positive impact her mom had on their lives.
Touching Hearts is one way Dulay aims to give back. She also has plans to start a business that builds affordable housing in Canada and uses some of the profits to build housing in the Philippines for families in need.
After her business studies, Dulay plans to study architecture. Two years of undergraduate studies are needed for architecture, which is why she’s in business administration.
Busy volunteer
At Acadia, Dulay volunteers with a club that promotes mental health services to students. She’s also creating a mural for an on-campus entrepreneurship organization and is the incoming president of Enactus Acadia, which promotes social entrepreneurship in the community.
Dulay was urged by a friend to apply for the Sobey scholarship. That friend, Kirsten Lawrence, won the scholarship a year ago.
Lawrence said Dulay is using entrepreneurship to create positive social change.
‘Always has a positive outlook,’ says friend
“Alex is someone who is extremely determined, which is clear in how she has overcome many obstacles in her life,” Lawrence wrote in an email to CBC News.
“She always has a positive outlook on life, she cares a lot about her friends and family, and is a supportive leader to her peers.”
Dulay estimates it took her four months to apply for the Sobey scholarship because she kept making changes to it. Part of the application required detailing her childhood. The process was therapeutic for her, but winning unlocked something else.
“Winning that award was definitely, like, the moment that I realized that I am on the right track with my life,” she said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
