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Keynote Address Friday June 17
Clare Nobbs 2:45 p.m.
Madame Chancellor, Madame President, Members of the
Platform Party, Graduates, George Brown College Faculty and
Staff, Everyone, good afternoon.
Since one of the strings to my bow is that I’m a storyteller, I’d like
to begin with a story. With deference to those of Persian origin in
the room, if I may, I’d like to tell you a story about the famous wise
fool of Persia, Mulla Nasruddin.
One day, the Mulla decided to invite a group of friends for a
special dinner. He picked out his favourite recipe – a turkey
dinner, and off he went to market with the recipe and a long list of
ingredients. So he bought a big turkey, and everything else
besides, and his bag full to bursting, he headed off back home.
On his way, though, a fox dashed out from the bushes, grabbed
the turkey out of his bag, and ran off with it. The Mulla watched for
a minute then started laughing, and he continued on towards
home, shaking his head and smiling.
A neighbour, who had seen everything, called out, “Mulla, aren’t
you upset? The fox has stolen your turkey!”

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“Oh, no”, said the Mulla, “that’s fine with me. In fact, more fool
him. You see, he has the turkey, but I have the recipe!”
Many of us leave school thinking finally we have the recipe. As
interpreters and intervenors, social service, community, and child
and youth workers, you now have so much to bring to the
communities you are going to serve. You’ve done the readings,
you’ve had your placements, written your papers and exams. So
now, you’re graduated and it’s time to go out and start helping
people.
Of course, I don’t know exactly what you’re going to be facing.
Each experience will be unique. But if I can extend to you some of
what I’ve learned along the way as a community worker, it is the
value of humility. Yes, you’ve done a great job, but you don’t yet
have all your ingredients. We may have read the book of
knowledge, but we never really know what we’re going to do until
we have that person in front of us, telling us their story, asking for
our support – and, naturally, we can’t do the work without them.
And each person is different, and everyone you meet and help,
advocate or interpret for will be your teacher, too. The most
“difficult clients” – the ones who get mad at you, who make you
want to hang up the phone, who won’t leave you alone one

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minute, and then don’t show up the next, the ones who
sometimes make me wonder why I do this, and if I can do this –
they are the ones from whom I learn the most.
And those times I’ve remembered to make space for that learning
to happen, and remembered that I am still – always – on the path
of learning, I have never forgotten those individuals. And
respecting that there is always a bigger reason behind their
behaviour makes me more ready and available to lean in and
support them through their toughest moments.
The difference between good work and great work, I believe, is
respect and transparency – not trying to show that we have the
answers, or cover up the fact that we don’t, but demonstrating
that we are real, and human, and we actually care.
So, why do we do this work? I think we do it because we want to
make a difference in the world; we want to be agents for change;
to fight oppression; to advocate for and with those whose voices
are less heard or not heard or misheard.
And, I believe many of us do this work because at some point in
our lives, we have had something bad done to us, so we know
what that feels like; and we have done our emotional healing, so
we know what that feels like – and we want others to know what

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healing feels like, too. Our pain is transformed into the passion we
bring to this work in order to try and ease the pain of others.
But as someone who, like you, has now done quite a bit of school,
as well as working in the field, and who has a couple of teenagers
into the bargain, one major lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t
actually take another person’s pain away. It’s not yours to take.
But what we can do - and here’s the secret ingredient: we can sit
with them, listen, hear them, truly pay attention, walk or go beside
them and witness their pain, with respect. Then take what we’ve
learned from their struggle and practice self-awareness and
allyship to change the structures that brought about their suffering
in the first place, to lower the barriers that block their path. And
that, I believe, is why we do this work and what makes the
difference.
I’d like to close with a poem by Karen Flett, from a book entitled
All Our Sisters – Stories of Homeless Women in Canada.

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If You Are Going To Help Me
Please be patient while I decide if I can trust you.
Let me tell my story, the whole story, in my own way.
Please accept that whatever I have done, whatever I may do, is
the best I have to offer.
I am not a person, I am this person, unique and special.
Don’t judge me as good or bad, right or wrong.
I am what I am and that is all I’ve got.
Don’t assume that your knowledge of me is more accurate than
mine.
You only know what I’ve told you.
Don’t think you know what I should do.
You don’t. I am the expert on me.
Don’t place me in the position of living up to your expectations.
I have enough trouble living up to my own.
Please hear my feelings, not just my words.
Accept all of them.
Don’t save me. I can do it myself.
I knew enough to ask for your help.
Congratulations, Class of 2016, and happy graduation!
*END*