Aparita

National Post, [11/13/2004]

APARITA BHANDARI

Special to the National Post

It’s 9:30 on a Saturday morning and already the linoleum floor of De Francesca Men’s Hair Stylists is carpeted with hanks of hair. Empty streetcars trundle by, and most of the other shops in the Dundas and Roncesvalles neighbourhood remain shuttered.

But the De Francesca brothers, Palmo and Joe, have been tending to a steady stream of regulars since 8 a.m.

One man, who gives his name only as Arnold, readies himself to go under the razor of elder brother, Palmo. Palmo eases back the red-leather-and-chrome barber chair and tucks a white towel, bibstyle, into Arnold’s shirt collar. Arnold’s face disappears into a hot towel, which Palmo then tosses on to an adjacent chair. From a dispenser he whooshes a dab of shaving cream in his hand and applies it liberally to Arnold’s face, working up a lather with a soft brush.

Then comes the straight razor. Palmo’s face, all smiles and eye-crinkles until now, turns serious. His square jaw sets, lips press into a thin line and raised eyebrows furrow his forehead. He pinches Arnold’s skin with his left hand, stretching it, and smoothes the razor over it with his right. The strokes are deft and precise, first with the grain, then, after a second lathering of shaving cream, against it. He follows this with another hot towel, then a cold one. Then comes a facial and shoulder massage.

“Ahhh,” Arnold sighs. “This is the best way to spend a Saturday morning. A shave and a haircut. Not many barbers do this any more. It’s an art.”

A quick whirr of the cash register, a few clinks of coin and Arnold is out the door. Meanwhile, at another chair, Joe has just finished with his customer.

“It’s an old man’s haircut,” he says with a laugh.

“Well, that’s what I like,” says the customer, who looks to be in his late 30s.

Another whirr of the register and clink of coins.

“Oh, I just tease him,” Joe says. “It’s cut very short. Old men, they don’t make fuss.”

If it’s a $14 haircut and $10 shave you desire, De Francesca is the place to go. Waiting is done on hard-backed chairs. There are no peach- or coconut-scented shampoos or conditioners, but if you stand close to Joe, you can catch a whiff of Proraso Crema all’Olio di Eucalipto, a line of shaving products from Italy. On this morning, Ella Fitzgerald is crooning Fever on 740 AM.

“If you don’t know how to shave, you can’t call yourself a barber,” Palmo says. “La barb, it means shave. We don’t do hair colouring. No pedicure, no spa. It’s a man’s shop.”

(Though it’s not for all men. Palmo says he won’t serve “men with lipstick or plucked eyebrows” in his shop. “I’m an old man, very traditional
Italian.”)

The door opens.

“Antonio.”

“Palmo,” the customer replies. “Can you take some off the top? It was cut too long.”

“I don’t do repair jobs,” Palmo shoots back, a smile on his face.

There’s a minor incident when Antonio jumps the line.

“I didn’t know you kept an appointment book,” grumbles the client in line before Antonio. “I thought it was first-come, first-served.”

Joe placates the man, finishing his haircut in a jiffy. He dusts the spray of hair from his shirt and turns to the next person in line.

“Francesco.”

“Joe.”

The 30-something Francesco’s head is an unruly mop. “I think, a little short on the sides,” Joe advises. Soon, in an unlikely duet, the steady hum from Joe’s electrical clippers can be heard along with the squeak of Palmo’s scissors. Joe works like a painter, standing on his toes, bending slightly, then leaning back, as if surveying a canvas.

Francesco asks for a shave, and the hot-cold towel routine starts again. Joe is careful with Francesco’s elaborate goatee.

“They say only a barber can touch the nose of a king,” Joe says, holding Francesco’s nose to pull back his face.

The two brothers learned their trade in Cosenza, in southern Italy. “Cosenza is a city of artigiane,” Palmo says. “All kinds. Shoemakers, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, furniture makers. And barbers.”

Palmo and Joe started apprenticeships when they were 14 years old. In 1959, when he was 19, Palmo came to Toronto, followed by Joe, in 1961. Both men worked for several years as gentlemen’s hairdressers before purchasing the Dundas-Roncesvalles barbershop.

Today, the only thing missing is the traditional barber pole. The brothers used to have an electrical cylinder on the wall outside the shop, but it was stolen. Now a red-and-white-striped pole is painted on the shop window.

“Before, a barber, he used to pull people’s teeth,” Palmo says. “He was doing surgery. So the red is blood, white, towels, and blue, disinfectant. It’s the same sign in my home country.”

Over the years, people have come and go in the neighbourhood, but the clientele, by and large, has remained the same. The Conville family, for one, discovered the barbershop a decade ago, when they lived in the district. Two years ago, they moved to Brampton, but they still come back every six weeks or so, depending on which one of the Conville men — father Cameron or sons James, 11, and William, 4 — needs a haircut.

“We also like to keep up with the neighbourhood gossip — what’s new, what’s torn down, what politician is doing what, what are the neighbours up to,” Conville says, while James gets his thick brown hair cut like an old-fashioned schoolboy. Palmo uses a razor to finish up at the back.

“Oh, you’re a big boy now. You get the razor,” Conville says. As James scrambles down, Conville gets ready for his own turn in the chair. “Basically, it’s two nice guys who know their stuff,” he says. Illustration: * Black & White Photo: Peter J. Thompson, National Post / Palmo De Francesca, right, chats with his brother, Joe, and Lissette Balawejder while cutting her two-year-old son John’s hair.

Toronto Star, [11/08/2004]

A new initiative has IBM reaching out to Canada’s aboriginal community Is it PR? Tokenism? Or market forces and the tide of history?

APARITA BHANDARI

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Skip Bird has “a lot of interest in technology.”

Since he was 7, when he got his first Nintendo game, Bird has taken things apart and reassembled them again.

“I loved the game, and I wanted to see how it worked, so I took the control pad apart,” says Bird, 17, in an interview from Edmonton. “I love taking computers apart, and building them up. And building software programs - I want to be a computer games designer. It’s my dream and goal.”

Bird grew up in the Paul First Nation reserve, near Duffield, Alta., and came to Edmonton with his family four and half years ago. Young though he is, Bird is married and has a 4-month-old child, and his life necessarily revolves around going to school and providing for his family. But when a school counsellor told Bird about an IBM Canada Ltd. information session for aboriginal youth in September, Bird was “very interested in going.”

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to go and talk to the IBM people,” he says. “To find out what they do, and what it takes to get up there. And after the session, I think I’m one step closer to achieving my dream.”

The information session was a pilot project, and part of a national strategy announced by IBM to expand its presence in aboriginal communities, increase opportunities for aboriginal-owned businesses and promote greater participation of aboriginals in the Canadian economy.

IBM Canada has also launched initiatives such as becoming a patron of the Seven Generations Campaign, which seeks to boost opportunities for aboriginals, has made donations of technology in the aboriginal community and has a contract with the Ojibway Cultural Foundation to help the Anishnabe of Manitoulin Island market their arts and crafts by Internet.

The workplace scenario today is fast-changing, with diversity initiatives becoming a business strategy. It makes sense when Canada’s visible-minority population, including its population of aboriginals, is increasing. Meanwhile burgeoning trade with markets around the world calls for the global outlook that diverse workforces can provide.

While aboriginal experts appreciate workplace equity programs, they point out the need to improve basic circumstances of aboriginal people - education, housing and family benefits - before larger numbers of people will benefit from real change.

When Bill Pickens saw an internal IBM e-mail asking for volunteers to speak at an information session for aboriginal high school students, he wasted no time signing up. The 50-year-old senior IT specialist at IBM’s Edmonton office saw it as an opportunity to help young aboriginals stay in school and give back to their people, just the way his grandfather did.

“My grandfather had made a tremendous difference in my life,” says Pickens. “He always encouraged me to try something new. Yes, it’s scary at first. But you have to find that internal courage. And you can do anything you want.”

As the last speaker at the IBM information session last month, Pickens told the story of his journey from a small reserve in Saskatchewan to IBM.

When Pickens stepped up to the podium, he greeted the students first in Sioux and then in Cree.
“Their eyes, their eyes,” says Pickens. “I dunno, they just kind of stared at me. Their eyes just got big. They were a great bunch of kids. And very smart ones. And I think we can make a huge difference in some of their lives.”

Growing up on a reserve, Pickens was deeply influenced by his grandfather, Walter Okuté, who was the chief of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

With his grandfather’s traditional stories helping him to deal with challenges and establish goals, Pickens finished Grade 12. After working in the construction industry, he went back to university and got some technology know-how. Then, starting at an oil company, he worked from the ground up.

After “cabling and programming,” he investigated PCs and LANs and moved up further to get management experience.

“I used to install IBM computers,” says Pickens. “I joined IBM about six years ago.
“I feel very fortunate to have had my grandfather as a mentor. He was such a courageous fellow, living in the midst of two cultures. He was able to take the best of both the aboriginal and the white world.”

IBM Canada’s aboriginal initiative continues the work of diversity task forces launched under former IBM chairman Lou Gerstner. The idea was to utilize diverse talent to understand and do better business in the more than 160 countries on the company’s client Rolodex.

The initiative encouraged people to think of IBM as an equal opportunity employer, while making the company attractive to a more diverse clientele.

It changed the face of IBM, as well as impacting its bottom- line.

According to an analysis of various IBM diversity initiatives published in the Harvard Business Review, the work of IBM’s women’s task force and other constituencies led IBM to establish its Market Development organization. A marketing arm targeting diverse small- and medium-sized businesses, it was responsible for $300 million (U.S.) in revenues last year, compared to $10 million in 1998.

Another project, the Minority Report, undertaken in Canada by Canadian Business magazine and OMNI TV, found that diversity is one of the keys to business success. The report looked at close to 450 firms that file reports with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada under the Employment Equity Act.

Passed in 1986, the act calls for elimination of barriers for four identified groups women, persons with disabilities, aboriginal people and members of visible minorities. It also seeks to remedy past discriminations and prevent future barriers. All federally regulated employers with 100 or more employees - such as banking, telecommunication, and international and inter-
provincial transportation - are subject to the act.

For the record, the Minority Report ranked Serco Facilities Management Inc. of Ottawa as best employer for aboriginal workers.

Call-Net Enterprises Inc. (Sprint Canada) ranked first over-all, with visible minorities making up a third of its work force, “with good representation at all levels of the company.”

While major banks lead the way in hiring practices and embracing diversity as a part of daily business strategies, many companies are now training their workers to understand and harness the power of cultural differences in project teams, in research and development and in consumer relations, the report says.

It’s good business sense, says Phani Radhakrishnan, a lecturer of organizational behaviour at University of Toronto.

“People are conscious about socially responsible companies,” she says. “If an environment-friendly company can build its image on that basis, why not diversity. It improves public life. It’s good PR.”
While Canadian companies are making decent progress in diversity initiatives in the lower employee ranks and the technology field, executives and senior management are still pretty monochromatic, says Radhakrishnan.

“Here organizations should have career development programs,” she says. “The government can set goals, but it’s up to the organization to have mentors. Visible minorities face the same barriers that women would not so long ago. They may not know the strategies, some as simple as networking. Going to a hockey game or a football game, where deals are made.

“These initiatives also depend on the charisma and influence of the CEO. You have to follow through, despite economic setbacks, or change in leadership. IBM has been pretty strongly committed. And this (information session with aboriginal school children) fits with the general strategy of IBM. Their diversity task force has identified that in order to recruit aboriginals, you need to develop skills and start young. IBM is being very proactive.”

Some critics might see the initiative as tokenism, but Radhakrishnan does not.

“Not everyone in the company will agree with these ideas, so you have to appeal to their materialistic side, and talk about how having minorities will help the company,” she says. “I don’t see this as wrong, it’s just a persuasion strategy.”

But while diversity task forces and equity acts are fine, there needs to be a reality check, says Ruby Durger, employment manager at Miziwe Biik. A not-for-profit organization, Miziwe Biik helps aboriginal people from across Canada land jobs.

Druger, who is Cree, worked with an international firm in human resources for more than 20 years before joining Miziwe Biik seven years ago.

“Our clients (aboriginals looking for work) come to us for three reasons,” says Druger, 62. “Employment, training or getting back to school. For our clients who come from living at a reserve, Toronto is a culture shock. They are like new immigrants.”

Young aboriginals often have children and limited resources for rent, transportation and babysitters. Since their educational qualifications are usually an issue, Druger helps her clients find work in every occupation from warehouse employment to more skilled jobs. And while her clients may want to upgrade their education, it’s difficult with just a minimum-wage job and a family to support.

Even if a client is skilled, cultural differences can make it hard for aboriginals to do well in job interviews.

“For example, when I tell my clients to make eye contact, they say, ‘but that’s staring.’” She has to make it clear that making eye-contact is desirable. “I have to tell them the difference. They may have good skills, but they would fail at a behavioural interview,” she says.

“Many of our clients want to work. But they believe in this myth that they’re not wanted in the corporate world. That they don’t have the skills. I have to counsel them to build their self-awareness, and show them how skills they are born with can translate into their work.

“It’s great (that) IBM wants more aboriginals. But there need to be more entry-level and mid-level jobs, where (aboriginal employees) can grow and be encouraged to grow.”

Illustration:

John Ulan epic photography for the Toronto Star. Skip Bird, 17, checks out Big Blue’s techy landscape with IBMer Bill Pickens, right, and a Thinkpad. Fears, phobias and disconnects must be overcome by all sides. “It’s scary at first. But you have to find that internal courage,” says Pickens. Then, “you can do anything.” “I’m one step closer to achieving my dream,” says Skip Bird, left, with IBM’s Bill Pickens who is also native Canadian. Workplace equity programs aren’t a magic wand but are pieces in a larger puzzle that also requires better education, housing and family benefits to solve.