Taking a million baby steps
Campbell River Mirror
By Paul Rudan
Oct 13 2007

A Campbell River woman is setting out on foot to Victoria to raise awareness about the need for accessible and affordable childcare.

Shelagh Germyn began her 270-kilometre journey south Tuesday morning and will stop in Duncan Oct. 14 on her way to bringing her message to the legislature Oct. 16.

“How can moms go to school, or get a job, if they don’t have daycare?” asks the 49-year-old veteran runner who competes in 100-kilometre ultra-marathons….

“The accessibility isn’t there. If you’re pregnant, your unborn child is already on a waiting list. And I know of some people who have three kids who are going to three separate daycares,” she says.

Germyn believes the economic demands on today’s low-income and single-parent families are more demanding than when her children were young. And she became aware of the current situation last winter while watching a community forum put on by the Campbell River Childcare Committee.

“It is a dire situation,” says Gwen Bennett, who helped organize the forum. “There are not enough spaces and not enough Early Childhood Educators.”

The challenges facing childcare — detailed locally in a recent report by Social Planning Cowichan — are numerous.

Most daycares can’t afford to pay benefits, and wages are in the range of $12 an hour. In order to increase wages, daycares have to bump up their fees which parents can barely afford. As a result, instead of joining the labour force, single parents stay at home because they cannot afford daycare and at least they receive health benefits from the welfare system.

Even when parents can afford daycare, it doesn’t mean they can get their children into programs with early childhood educators. The Social Planning Cowichan report indicated about 50 per cent of the children needing licensed daycare in the Valley are unable to access it.

Germyn started her walk/run to Victoria on Tuesday morning. The daycare advocate will be joined by other supporters who will carry banners imprinted with colourful little kids feet — a symbol of the Million Steps for Child Care. Germyn hopes to get enough banners from daycares across the Island to wrap them around the legislature on Oct. 16.

“This isn’t about a race. This is about a cause,” she says. “I hope families will come out and walk or bike with me to support childcare.”