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Veteran broadcaster Tamara Taggart to lead panel discussion at UFV

Session on Friday, March 6 in Abbotsford held in honor of International Women’s Day
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Tamara Taggart will lead a panel discussion on Friday, March 6 at the Abbotsford campus of University of the Fraser Valley in recognition of International Women’s Day.

Community leader Tamara Taggart, who received an honorary doctorate from University of the Fraser Valley in 2017, will return to the Abbotsford campus on Friday, March 6 to lead a panel in honour of International Women’s Day.

The event, part of the President’s Leadership Lecture Series presented by UFV president Joanne MacLean, will take place at 3 p.m. in Evered Hall in the Student Union Building. Admission is free, and the public is welcome.

With a theme of Finding our Voice: The Conversations We Don’t Have, the discussion will focus on health and wellness issues.

Taggart will be joined by family physician Shahana Alibhai, an advocate for optimal health, and nutritionist Kate Horsman, who is dedicated to helping people discover the power of food and its key to wellness in a happy, meaningful and healthy life.

An activist, veteran broadcaster, cancer survivor, and mother, Taggart advocates for others and raises much-needed funds for many important causes.

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Throughout her career as a broadcaster on local television, radio and digital media, she earned her place as a trusted voice for people in Vancouver.

She has focused two decades of volunteer efforts on health care and the well-being of children and people with disabilities.

Taggart’s 2014 TED Talk, Two Conversations that Changed My Life, struck a chord with medical professionals and universities around the world, by reframing the way health-care practitioners communicate hope.

In 2015 she was awarded the Order of BC in recognition of her years of public service. She also received an honorary degree from UFV in 2017.

Alibhai is a family doctor and a mother of two who faced postpartum anxiety after the birth of her first son. With over

over 10 years of studying nutrition, exercise, and medicine she thought she knew what it took to keep her well.

But the missing link for Alibhai was healthy thinking.

“I was used to sprinting through life and at this pace, eventually, you hit the wall. I’ve come up with the pyramid of optimal health because it’s something I’ve used personally and with my patients,” she says.

Horsman is a nutritionist and professional counsellor. She melds the bridge between the mind/body connection, which lends to her specialization in eating disorders, mental illness, women’s health and plant-based living.

Taggart will guide the conversation and provide a keynote introduction.

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She will share her personal story, outlining how she put herself through journalism school, found her own voice, and eventually became an advocate for her own health and the health of her son, who has Down syndrome.

Taggart will reflect on how surviving and thriving are on a continuum, not mutually exclusive.

“What challenges teach us,” she notes. “I will touch on how we learn and grow from the hard times.”

Alibhai will discuss the stigma around post-partum anxiety and depression, and how the pyramid model of optimal health can help you optimize the mind and relationships, make better decisions about health, and positively impact those around you.

Horsman will discuss how challenging conversations allow us to heal, to connect, and to create space, and how we need to learn how to trust ourselves/bodies again.

She will also touch on post-traumatic growth; the idea that our challenges can actually fuel our greatness, rather than our weakness.

To register for the event, contact presidentsoffice@ufv.ca.