Andrew Kooman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Red Deer, Alberta, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | University of Calgary |
| Period | 2009–present |
| Genre | Historical fiction Legal thriller Tragedy Young adult fiction |
| Notable works | She Has a Name |
| Notable awards | Scripts at Work/Alberta Playwrights Network Award |
Andrew Kooman is an author and playwright from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.
Andrew Kooman is from Red Deer, Alberta, [1] and graduated from the Bachelor of Arts collaborative degree program between Red Deer College and the University of Calgary in 2003. [2] He also studied English and creative writing at a university in Edmonton, [3] and graduated from the Multimedia Web Developer program at the University of Calgary in 2008. [2] As of June 2012, he was working in public relations at Red Deer College. [4] Andrew now lives with his wife and son in London, Ontario. [5]
Andrew Kooman first became aware of the issue of human trafficking while he was working for the Christian [6] nonprofit organization Youth with a Mission (YWAM) [7] in southeast Malaysia, [4] where he met child victims of human trafficking, [7] but Kooman later came to realize that human trafficking is an issue in Canada as well; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimate that between 600 and 800 people are trafficked into Canada every year. [8] Kooman has spoken about the cases in which people have been trafficked into Calgary and Edmonton to work in the sex industry, and has posited that sex workers have likely been trafficked into his hometown of Red Deer as well since it is also located along Alberta Highway 2. [9] Kooman continued to work in Malaysia with YWAM for two years, towards the end of which time he visited Singapore, [6] where he attended an international conference on human trafficking, there learning details on the issue that shocked him. [10] The conference focused on the military use of children and the prostitution of children. [11] One of the facts that stuck with Kooman was that there are children aged five and under who are forcibly prostituted daily, [6] and that many of these children end up spending their entire lives as human trafficking victims. [12] Kooman is the director of Raise Their Voice, [13] a creative, justice-driven, [14] nonprofit organisation in Red Deer. [15] The other four members of the organization are his family members. [16] With the help of two brothers Matthew and Daniel , Andrew established Unveil Studios. [17]
Andrew Kooman is an author and playwright. [4] All of Kooman's writings focus on justice [18] and many of the issues he writes about are gender-based. [4] Kooman's first literary reaction to human trafficking was to write some short stories. [11] Eventually, he also started writing the play that became She Has a Name to bring attention to the issue of human trafficking, specifically in its connections to sexual exploitation. [9] In 2009, the script of She Has a Name was given the Scripts at Work/Alberta Playwrights Network Award. [19] By February 2012, Kooman was working on a screenplay version of She Has a Name to expose it to a larger audience. [20] Some Americans expressed an interest in staging She Has a Name in the United States. [11] After starting to write this play, Kooman read about the Ranong human-trafficking incident in a Canadian newspaper [21] and also heard about it through a friend of his who was working at an aftercare centre in Bangkok, Thailand to restore the dignity of former sex workers. [10] Knowing that many of the impoverished girls who are smuggled in this manner become enslaved in brothels as child prostitutes, Kooman used the incident in the backstory of the play. [22] There was a tour of She Has a Name in 2012, and the final performances were held in Red Deer. Kooman was glad to have the tour conclude in his hometown because the people of Central Alberta were very supportive of the play. [23] During the tour, Kooman was awarded the Outstanding Alumnus Provincial Award Celebrating Excellence (PACE) by the Alberta Association of Colleges & Technical Institutes (AACTI) and the Alberta Ministry of Enterprise. [2] In conjunction with this award, a $5000 scholarship was set up in Kooman's name, which he chose to have awarded to students who evince creativity, leadership, and a commitment to those who are in need. [24] The PACE Award ceremony is biennial, and took place on June 13 in Edmonton at the AACTI Board of Governors Conference. [2]
Before writing She Has a Name, Kooman had written other pieces of literature that had been published, such as the young adult novel Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora , but this was his first full-length play. [4] He had, however, been writing shorter plays since 2007, [3] and has written other full-length plays since She Has a Name, including one about Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian Christian who was a political prisoner of the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and another about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands; [7] these plays are called We Are The Body and Delft Blue respectively. [25]
Aritha van Herk,, is a Canadian writer, critic, editor, public intellectual, and university professor. Her work often includes feminist themes, and depicts and analyzes the culture of western Canada.
Joy Ann Smith is a Canadian politician. She served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba between 1999 and 2003, and was in the House of Commons of Canada from 2004 to 2015.
CHCA-TV was a television station in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. It was owned by Canwest, and was part of the E! television system. The station was seen on VHF channel 6 and cable channel 11 in Red Deer. The station was previously Red Deer's CBC affiliate. CHCA had its studios on Bremner Avenue in Downtown Red Deer and transmitter off Range Road 265 in Red Deer County.
The Alberta Football League (AFL) is an amateur Canadian football league. The league's schedule runs from the start of June through to the end of September.
The Calgary–Edmonton Corridor is a geographical region of the Canadian province of Alberta. It is the most urbanized area in Alberta and is one of Canada's four most populated urban regions. It consists of Statistics Canada Alberta census divisions No. 11, No. 8, and No. 6. Measured from north to south, the region covers a distance of approximately 400 km (250 mi). As of the designations in the Canada 2021 Census of census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) in Alberta, the corridor includes three of the province's four CMAs and two CAs, in addition to four other CAs already included in the Calgary and Edmonton CMAs.
The Alberta Elite Hockey League or AEHL is the provincial U18 "AAA" ice hockey league for Alberta, Canada. The league consists of 17 teams split into the North and South Divisions. League champions go on to compete with the BC Elite Hockey League champions to represent the Pacific at the annual Telus Cup, Canada's national U18 championship. The Calgary Buffaloes are the current league champions. Red Deer is the last AEHL team to win a national title, having won in 2012 & 2013.
The Alberta public colleges and technical institutes have had an informal association since 1990. In 1992, the Council of Presidents and the Council of Board Chairs for the 12 public colleges and institutes became more formalized and an Executive Assistant was hired to provide support to the two councils. Sharon Carry was one of the original founders of the organization.
The Honorable Richard D. "Rick" Orman is a businessman and former Canadian politician. Orman was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1948 as a fourth generation Albertan. He studied at the University of Calgary before graduating with honours from Eastern Washington University in 1971. Orman served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1986 to 1993. Since 1993, he has been active within the business community, both provincially and internationally.
The Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) is an Alberta-based Junior A ice hockey league that belongs to the Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL). It was formed as a five-team league in 1964. As of 2023 there are 16 teams in the league. The regular season league champions receive the Dave Duchak Trophy. The playoff champions receive the Inter Pipeline Cup. The winner of the AJHL playoffs continues on to play in the Centennial Cup tournament, which determines Canadian Junior A champion.
She Has a Name is a play about human trafficking written by Andrew Kooman in 2009 as a single act and expanded to full length in 2010. It is about the trafficking of children into sexual slavery and was inspired by the deaths of 54 people in the Ranong human-trafficking incident. Kooman had previously published literature, but this was his first full-length play. The stage premiere of She Has a Name was directed by Stephen Waldschmidt in Calgary, Alberta in February 2011. From May to October 2012, She Has a Name toured across Canada. In conjunction with the tour, A Better World raised money to help women and children who had been trafficked in Thailand as part of the country's prostitution industry. The first performances of She Has a Name in the United States took place in Folsom, California in 2014 under the direction of Emma Eldridge, who was a 23-year-old college student at the time.
Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora is a young adult novel written by Andrew Kooman. It is a fantasy novel and its protagonist is Jill Strong. Ten Silver Coins was Kooman's debut novel. Kooman wrote the majority of the book in 2004 while working in Asia. It is the first novel in a three-novel series.
Stephen Waldschmidt is an actor, playwright, theatre director, scenic designer and graphic designer originally from Cleveland, Ohio, United States.
The Scott Block Theatre is a theatre in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. It is located downtown. It was remodelled in 2010 to host a monthly show called the Red Deer Cabaret. It has hosted a variety of plays, including Cathleen Rootseart's Choke, Andrew Kooman's She Has a Name, and Alexandra Mihill's Dead Lover's Day. It has also hosted concerts by a variety of artists, including Into Eternity, Anvil, Titans Eve, and Day One. The Scott Block Theatre has hosted competitions, such as Scriptease, a theatre competition; and the Bikram Yoga Alberta Regional Championships, a yoga competition. Comedian Roman Danylo has performed at the theatre as well.
ACT Alberta is a Canadian coalition of Government of Alberta representatives, non-governmental organizations, community organisations, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ACT Alberta provides resources to help front-line workers identify potential trafficking situations and aid victims of human trafficking. The coalition also raises awareness of human trafficking in Alberta.
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Jessica Edith Louise Foster, is a Canadian woman who disappeared in the Las Vegas Valley in Nevada, United States, in 2006. Her parents are Glendene Grant and Dwight Foster. Jessie Foster had spent some time living in Calgary, Alberta. In 2005, Foster and a friend of hers visited Florida together, and then stopped by Las Vegas on the way back in May where Foster decided to stay. Before disappearing the following year, Foster became involved in prostitution, was arrested once for solicitation, and was the victim of battery on several occasions.
A Better World (ABW) is an organization that is based in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada. It is a charitable organization, formed in 1990. Eric Rajah is one of the co-founders of ABW. More than 1800 people had volunteered on ABW projects by 2010.
Timea Nagy is a Canadian activist who has spoken on behalf of victims of human trafficking. She founded Walk With Me, a Toronto-based organization that aids survivors of trafficking. Nagy was featured in an anti-trafficking campaign by the Salvation Army in 2009. Her activism has drawn upon her own experience of forced prostitution in Canada.
John Winterdyk is a Canadian criminology professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. He is the university's Centre for Criminology and Justice Research chair.
She Has a Name is a 2016 Canadian drama thriller film directed by Daniel Kooman and Matthew Kooman and written by Andrew Kooman, based on the play of same name by Andrew. The film stars Will Yun Lee, Eugenia Yuan, Teresa Ting, Gil Bellows, and Giovanni Mocibob.