By Frederick Halley
ADVOCATING for equality does not mean treating people ‘equally.’ It means treating people ‘fairly’ regardless of race, gender, religion or other characteristics and identities. It is about ensuring everyone has a chance at equal opportunity or treatment, based on human rights. It can also take many forms such as the fight for democracy, upholding human rights and the principles of social justice. These values are needed in our society to help progressively build on our engagement and life experiences.

Guyanese-born Janet Naidu, having left the shores of Guyana in the mid-1970s to make Canada her new home, has been on this progressive path, both in her profession and in her volunteer support in the Guyanese-Canadian community in Toronto.

In an interview with Pepperpot Magazine, Naidu talked about her long-term career with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), as a Manager of Diversity Management, promoting diversity and inclusion in a traditionally male environment, which made positive transformations in gender representation under Naidu’s leadership when she worked there. She emphasis\ed the need for policies and educational programmes as a foundation for progressive change and as a long-term strategy. Her role as President of the Toronto Employment Equity Association helped to foster new ways of influencing the leadership.

Growing up in Covent Garden, East Bank Demerara, Janet comes from humble beginnings. Her father was a cane-cutter and her mother sold greens in the village and the market. She often reflects on the hard work they put in to make a better home for their family, to ensure the children went to school and obtained an education. Naidu believes her strengths to enter the field of human rights, diversity and inclusion came from the foundation of witnessing the hard work of her parents, as well as having impressionable school teachers who instilled the values of developing one’s skills to compete in the working world. Janet sees Guyana as her early ‘home’ and will continue to receive attention and necessary help from the international community of Guyanese.

Naidu is recognised for her literary contribution to poetry and other writings, having published three collections of poems – Winged Heart, Rainwater and Sacred Silence. Janet gives credit to the late Rajkumari Singh, who encouraged her to write poetry in the early 1970s. Singh, Guyana’s iconic figure as a writer, political activist and cultural leader in the arts had formed the Messenger Group and mentored poets and writers such as Rooplall Monar, Henry Muttoo, Mahadai Das, Gushka Kissoon and others. Janet herself recognised the need for a writers’ support group in Toronto, and she initiated the formation of the Pakaraima Writers’ Association to encourage writers and poets to support each other in their writings and publications. She served as its President for 12 years and continues to participate in community readings, while encouraging writers to join the group. Some of Janet’s poems have been academically published in the University of the West Indies Journal on Women’s Studies.

In the early 1990s, Janet joined the Association of Concerned Guyanese (ACG-Canada), when she learned that it supports the efforts of the people of Guyana towards a society based on peace, democracy, equality and human rights. Janet is the second female President in the association’s existence. The ACG-Canada was formed in Toronto in 1973 to mobilise support in the international community for supporting the restoration of democracy in Guyana. Naidu stated that she appreciates the opportunity to serve the ACG in this leadership capacity, where she can continue to make a positive contribution as part of the diaspora for the benefit of Guyana, as well as to help foster the Guyanese-Canadian community towards a spirit of unity. Being a community activist, Naidu has served in the community as a member of the Guyana Independence Festival Committee and Co-Chaired the Committee the year the festival first expanded its events.

She volunteers in the wider Canadian community, whether in professional organisations or in the community where she resides. As a certified Career Coach, she serves as a mentor to young professionals in the human resource profession to help them in their career goals and aspirations. She has been a speaker of conferences in the area of harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace and also as a speaker at community events such as a guest of honour at a dinner for educating girls in western Kenya, delivering a talk on juggling work and family and other demands in the life of working women.

Naidu has a BA in Political Science and Caribbean Studies from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of London, UK. Having completed her legal education later in life, Janet is not a practising lawyer; she has utilised her legal education to teach legal courses in the subject area of hospitality and tourism at George Brown College in Toronto.

She currently works as a consultant in conflict-resolutions issues, workplace restoration, facilitation and human rights- related issues. She is an investigator of allegations of workplace harassment and discrimination for the Government of Ontario, specialising in several protected grounds of the Ontario Human Rights Code. She has helped employers with change- management strategies and training programmes to incorporate code of conduct and ethics into managerial and supervisory leadership skills and, where appropriate, to foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace policies and practices.