With 18,000 students in 59 government-funded schools, independent schools are playing an increasingly important role in Manitoba.

Many of these schools are religious schools like The King’s School, Dasmesh School, Springs Christian Academy, Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute, Beautiful Saviour Lutheran School, Linden Christian School, Steinbach Christian School and IQRA Islamic School.

On its website, the provincial government says it “strongly supports the rights of parents and guardians to choose their child’s education. Parents choose independent schools for reasons such as faith, philosophy of teaching and learning, and tradition.”

This is quite a contrast to 110 years ago. That’s when the province passed the School Attendance Act of 1916 as a way, during wartime, to promote integration and social cohesion.

In Canada, most Jewish communities recognize two official days, one in January and one in April, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and honour those who against all odds managed to survive it. For Adeena Lungen, however, the act of commemorating and honouring has never needed a designated day.

As an about to retire social worker in Winnipeg’s Jewish Child and Family Service’s (JCFS) Holocaust Support Program, Lungen has spent 27 years working with local survivors, providing them with emotional and psychological supports, assisting them with practical matters, helping them age with dignity, and holding space for them to grieve and remember those they lost. She also has created special social and cultural programming for them, including Café Europa, a bi-monthly event that brings survivors together to lunch, learn, enjoy eclectic entertainment, and celebrate Jewish holidays.

Lungen was already familiar with many of the city’s survivor community when she assumed her new role at JCFS.

While her mother Clara had escaped Poland on the last ship to sail from Europe before the outbreak of the Second World War, her father Ben, who lost his mother and two siblings to the Nazis, spent the war years hiding in the Belarus woods with a partisan unit. Years after the war, the couple met, married and made their home in Winnipeg.

Last month, the British government issued a warning that hasn’t been heard in that country since the Second World War: stock up on food.

As reported by columnist Gwynne Dyer in this newspaper, the warning came from environment minister Angela Eagle when she was talking about the impact this year’s El Niño could have on food supplies in the United Kingdom.

“We’re about to experience probably the largest El that has ever been seen, and that will lead to drier summers, wetter winters, with more extreme storms in this country,” she said.

That could lead to food shortages, Eagle said, adding: “If you’ve got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for a while before the emergency services can get to you, you’re going to be a lot better off than if you haven’t.”

We have an election coming up. With that in mind, the Free Press asked some of their columnists to write about the challenges ahead and how the city can become better.

For Tom Brodbeck, the main challenge is finances — and how candidates will pay for their many promises for fixing roads, improving public safety and making transit better.

Rebecca Chambers said that the concerns of inner-city residents need to be taken seriously by those who aspire to work at city hall.

Niigaan Sinclair said the most pressing issue in Winnipeg isn’t construction projects, light-rail transit, public safety, taxes or social services. For him, it’s the city’s relationship with Indigenous people.

Jehovah’s Witnesses jailed in Russia. A shortage of clergy in the United Kingdom. A dispute between the Catholic Church and the Trump administration over a sacred site in New Mexico. Baptist churches in Ukraine providing warmth to people in that country in winter.

These are stories you likely don’t know about. But you could have known about them if you subscribed to the Religion Media Centre.

The Centre is an organization in the United Kingdom that reports on religion and belief in that country — and around the world — in an effort to promote cohesion and understanding in society.

Describing itself as impartial, the Centre doesn’t promote any one religion or belief; it has no editorial line other than “religion matters.”