Keystone Agricultural
Producers prides itself
on being a grassroots
farm policy group that
takes its direction
from its members. So
if it hopes to represent producers from
all over the province and all across the
agricultural sector, KAP needs to do a
lot of connecting.
That’s no small feat when your
membership is over 5,000 farmers,
spanning the north to the Interlake
to the Pembina Valley. Not every KAP
member has the time or the means to
attend advisory council meetings or
join policy committees, so the organization
has had to find other ways to
meaningfully engage members.
That’s why KAP has a membership
coordinator – someone to act as the
point of contact for the thousands of
people entitled to help to steer the
organization. This person answers
members’ questions, collects members’
input, and provides information about
KAP’s policies and activities.
This past April, the organization
welcomed Sandra Hanusic into the role.
“Sandra has a great customer service
approach,” said Patty Rosher, KAP general
manager. “She’s had many, many
conversations with farmers over the
years through her past work, and she’s
clearly interested in them and their
operations.”
Sandra comes to KAP with plenty
of experience in the ag industry, having
worked for more than 14 years with SGS
Canada Inc., a third-party inspection
and verification company.
But it’s how she got here that KAP
members might find particularly
interesting. Sandra’s career journey has
taken a number of twists and turns,
and she’s had to demonstrate tenacity
and grit that the average farmer will no
doubt relate to.
When she was in her early 20s,
Sandra immigrated to Canada from the
Republic of Croatia, former Yugoslavia,
near the end of the Bosnian war. She
came with her husband, Sladjan, and her
son, Damir, who was just five years old
at the time.
“My country was torn apart,” she
recalled. “We’d had a war, which started
in Croatia and then Bosnia. Everything
was turned upside down and the whole
system collapsed, one country becoming
six republics. I didn’t want to raise my
child in that environment.”
The family arrived in Winnipeg in
December of 1995, during one of the
coldest winters the city had seen in years.
“It was -37°C without the windchill,”
she said. “In one way I wondered what I
was getting into. I was born and raised
and lived almost all of my life on the
coast of the Adriatic Sea. I’d never even
seen snow before!
“But in another way, I was just
determined to have a better life for
myself, my son and my husband. I didn’t
care about what kind of weather we
were having when Canada was providing
me with a new home and a new life.”
Her initial impressions – aside from
the brutal cold – were that Winnipeggers
seemed friendly, and she was optimistic
about their new home.
Both she and Sladjan spoke next
to no English, so although she had
KAP’s new
membership
coordinator
aims to please
BY JACQUIE NICHOLSON
MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR
>>
Manitoba Farmers’ Voice § Fall 2019 § 25