Linda Gershuny
Linda Gershuny | |
|---|---|
| ABM | Americas ???? - 1990 |
| Counsellor | Americas 1990 - 2000 |
Linda Gershuny is a Canadian Bahá’í who pioneered to Haiti and served as a Continental Counselor for the Americas.
Background[edit]
Gershuny attended the University of Ottawa studying education in the 1970's and in 1976 one of her lecturers who had been introduced to the Bahá’í Faith by her spoke about the religion in a talk to four hundred teachers.[1]
In 1979 Gershuny pioneered to Haiti from Canada.[2] In March 1979 she was offered a job teaching the children of staff of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in inner Haiti and she was also provided with a rent-free house to stay in and she moved to the interior of the country settling in Deschapeller.[3] This allowed her to visit rural communities in the country to teach the Faith and in June 1979 Hidáyatu’lláh Aḥmadíyyih visited her home to conduct a fireside during a teaching campaign.[4] As of 1980 she was the only pioneer who had been able to settle outside of the capitol region of Haiti.[5]
In 1980 Gershuny visited Canada and gave a talk on helping children recover from malnutrition at a Bahá’í conference on health and healing held in Ottawa,[6] and in 1982 she gave a talk on intercultural communication at the Association for Bahá’í Studies conference also held in Ottawa.[7] By 1985 the National Spiritual Assembly of Haiti had appointed Gershuny as the coordinator of a Development Committee overseeing a Canadian International Development Agency project.[8] In 1986 she began going by the surname Neufeld and as of that year the Haiti Development Committee had begun efforts to establish two Bahá’í school and literacy classes utilizing non-Bahá’í funding.[9]
As of 1989 Gershuny had been appointed as an Auxiliary Board member and assisted Counselor Ruth Pringle and a teaching team in opening the island of Cayemite in Haiti to the Faith.[10] In 1990 the Universal House of Justice appointed her as a Continental Counselor for the Americas for a five year term,[11] and as of 1995 she had begun going by Gershuny again and was reappointed as Counselor for a second five year term that year.[12]
Gershuny continued to serve the Haiti Bahá’í community after completing her term as Counselor tutoring Book 6 of the Ruhi Institute as of 2004.[13] In her professional career she has continued working in education and at some point completed a Master's Degree in Adult Education at the University of Toronto and she is currently the director and curriculum designer of the Centre for Learning, Training for Transformation, or CAFT, in Haiti.[14]
Talks[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Baha'i Canada, Issue 294, p 9
- ↑ Pulse of the Pioneer, No. 30, p 3
- ↑ Baha'i Canada 1, Vol. 2(3), p 22
- ↑ Pulse of the Pioneer, No. 31, p 4
- ↑ Pulse of the Pioneer, No. 33, p 10
- ↑ Baha'i News (1980). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 596, Pg(s) 9. View as PDF.
- ↑ Baha'i News (1982). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 620, Pg(s) 13. View as PDF.
- ↑ Baha'i News (1985). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 650, Pg(s) 11. View as PDF.
- ↑ Baha'i News (1986). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 668, Pg(s) 14. View as PDF.
- ↑ Teach Canada!, Vol. 2 No. 12, p 1
- ↑ 25 October 1990 Letter from the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the World
- ↑ 29 October 1995 Letter from the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of the World
- ↑ Baha'i Canada, Vol. 16, No. 9, p 17
- ↑ https://www.globallearningpartners.com/cdets/linda-gershuny/
