Each year, MHI recognizes individuals whose dedication, leadership, and generosity strengthen our communities in meaningful ways. In 2026, we are proud to present the 2025 Volunteer of the Year awards to an extraordinary group of community leaders.

Crystal Sauvé - 2025 Tenant Volunteer of the Year
Crystal Sauvé has been an integral part of the Fine Crescent and Meadowbrook community for many years. Crystal and her children Andrey, Alyvia, Avery, and Amelia are a powerful force for connection, care, and community spirit.

For years, Crystal has stepped up in countless ways. She advocates for her neighbours, shares resources, supports and guides youth, and leads community clean ups. The list truly goes on. She is a deeply caring neighbour who looks out for the well being of fellow tenants and their families.

Since the MHI and Gloucester amalgamation, Crystal has taken on the role of community champion. She coordinates weekly food distribution as part of the food security program, ensuring her neighbours have access to essential groceries. This work is labour intensive and time consuming, yet she shows up every single week without hesitation and never asks for anything in return.

Crystal truly embodies community spirit and reflects our guiding principle of “nothing for us without us.” Her impact is lasting and deeply appreciated.

Christian Kratchanov - 2025 Gay Richardson Volunteer of the Year
Christian Kratchanov has made an outstanding contribution to MHI through more than six years of service as a Board member and Treasurer. He continues to give his time and expertise through the Finance Committee and Governance Committee.

Christian’s steady leadership and strong financial background have strengthened MHI’s governance and supported responsible financial stewardship. His thoughtful guidance has helped advance the organization’s mission and ensure long term stability.

His integrity, commitment, and generosity have left a meaningful and lasting mark on MHI.

Shirley Siegel - 2025 Gay Richardson Volunteer of the Year
Since joining MHI’s Governance and Human Resources Committee, Shirley Siegel has become an indispensable contributor. She has provided steady, thoughtful guidance on compensation system design and many other governance and HR matters, supporting the Board and Executive through significant organizational decisions.

Shirley brings extensive executive and human resources expertise from senior leadership roles in the Federal Public Service and international institutions including the IMF and the United Nations. Her professionalism, insight, and dedication have strengthened MHI in lasting ways and helped ensure the organization remains a leader in Ottawa’s nonprofit housing sector.

Bijan Safi - 2025 Gay Richardson Volunteer of the Year
As both an MHI Board member and Chair of the Properties Committee, Bijan Safi played a key role in strengthening MHI’s property management framework.

His leadership guided the development of long term asset planning, preventive maintenance strategies, and professional standards that will support MHI communities for years to come. Bijan’s vision and dedication have created a strong foundation that will benefit tenants well into the future.

His commitment and expertise leave an enduring legacy.

Want to Get Involved?

If Crystal, Christian, Shirley, or Bijan have inspired you, why not join in? Whether you are interested in supporting community programs, serving on a committee, sharing your professional expertise, or helping strengthen affordable housing in Ottawa, there is a volunteer opportunity for you at MHI.

Visit www.multifaithhousing.ca/volunteer to learn more and sign up.

Passover is likely the most widely observed of all Jewish holidays. Perhaps this is because of its universal message: even in a world where many are oppressed, freedom remains possible.

The holiday is a time to recount the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage in ancient Egypt under Pharaoh, and their exodus from oppression to freedom—through the hand of HaShem, the Almighty, who brought us out of Egypt. At the ritual meal—the seder—we retell this story through wine, symbolic foods, and shared narration, guided by the Haggadah, the book that sets out the order of the evening and preserves the telling of the Exodus. More than a script, the Haggadah invites questions, discussion, and personal reflection.

We are instructed that it is praiseworthy to expand upon the story told in the Haggadah. Accordingly, throughout the ages, around the seder table, discussion has often turned to the relevance of the Exodus narrative to contemporary experiences of oppression—both those faced by the Jewish people and by others around the world.

Some families, including my own, reenact parts of the Exodus. At one memorable seder, instead of sitting around a table, we sat on the floor, imagining what it was like to flee from Egypt with nothing but what we could carry on our backs—and the faith that Moses, our deliverer, guided by HaShem, would lead us forward.

For me, one of the most poignant aspects of the seder is the reminder that this is not merely distant history. We are taught that we ourselves were there—that all generations, past, present, and future, experienced both the bitterness of slavery and the joy of redemption.

Having now experienced more than 75 seders, I look back with a mix of melancholy, joy, and hope on seders past—those I eagerly anticipated with my Bubbe and Zaide, my parents, and our uncles, aunts, and cousins in Winnipeg; and later, after we moved to Ottawa, the seders shared with friends as part of our synagogue community. Over time came the transition to hosting seders ourselves (no small task), and now to joining those hosted by our children.

Most joyous of all, this year we look forward to our grandchildren, Hila and Ryan, ages three and four, making their own contribution to the seder by reciting in Hebrew the Four Questions that lead into the retelling of the story of the Exodus.

​Passover invites us not only to remember, but to feel, to connect, and to recognize that the journey from oppression to freedom is both a collective memory and an enduring human hope.

Chag Pesach Sameach.

"We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and HaShem our God brought us out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm."
— The Haggadah

​Picture caption: Three generations of our family sit around the seder table to once again recount our journey from oppression to freedom.

Yom HaShoah, whose full title is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGevurah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), is one of the most solemn days on the Jewish calendar. It commemorates the Shoah, or Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The date was chosen to fall near Passover to honor and recall the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on April 19, 1943—the night of the first Passover Seder—a powerful symbol of Jewish resistance and courage. In 2026, Yom HaShoah is observed from sundown Monday, April 13, to nightfall Tuesday, April 14.

More than 80 years after the end of World War II, the Jewish people have still not recovered numerically; there are fewer Jews in the world today than there were on the eve of World War II in 1939.

My grandparents, having immigrated to Canada in the early years of the last century, were spared the immediate impact of the tragedy. Yet the worlds they left behind were destroyed. Their villages—Yampol, Luninets, and Ludvipol (today Sosnove), in what are today western Ukraine and southern Belarus—were utterly devastated, with virtually all of their inhabitants murdered, many by firing squads on the brink of mass graves, including siblings, cousins, extended family members, friends, rabbis, and the teachers of their youth.
When I was young, on my grandparents’ bookshelf there was a Yizkor Book—a book of remembrance in Hebrew and Yiddish—in which survivors and townspeople who had immigrated before the darkness recounted, in loving detail, the towns of their youth that no longer existed.

In Ottawa, Yom HaShoah is commemorated at a solemn community ceremony. Six survivors traditionally light six candles of remembrance. With the passing years, fewer survivors remain, and their children and grandchildren now take up this sacred task. Prayers of mourning are recited, and survivors or scholars bear witness to the cataclysm that engulfed our people.

In 2010, my family and I had the privilege of being in Jerusalem on Yom HaShoah. At 11 in the morning, sirens sounded across the country, and the entire nation came to a halt. Cars stopped on highways, drivers stood beside them, people paused in the streets, and work ceased in factories and shops—all to commemorate the tragedy.

In those moments of stillness, whether in Jerusalem, Ottawa, or in the quiet reflection of our own homes, we remember not only how our people died but also how they lived: with faith, dignity, and an enduring commitment to one another. We remember the worlds that were lost and the names that might have been forgotten, and we affirm that their memory is carried forward in us.

I will give them… a name that endures beyond sons and daughters… an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” — Isaiah 56:5

The Oud player Fadi Taiba fled the war in Syria in 2012, carrying his oud with him when he arrived in Egypt. His experience of being a refugee on his own deepened his connection to the instrument and to music.

Living through such an intense period strengthened his bond with the oud and opened him to sharing and collaborating across many musical traditions and cultures. Over the years, he has worked with artists from around the world, including Egypt, Europe, the United States, and Canada.

Now in Canada since September 2025, Fadi is eager to share his music and the unique sound and spirit of the oud in his new home. As some of you may remember, Fadi played at MHI’s Annual General Meeting, performing during the welcome and reception. The sound of his oud added a beautiful and memorable element to the event.

Fadi is available for events and teaching opportunities. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Instagram at @fadiaboalteeb