Winnipeg woman with significant challenges sells art to fund her travel dreams

4 week_ago 13

Manitoba·New

Jannie Messmer has cerebral palsy and an intelligence disability. She is besides deaf. She creates and sells her ain creation and crafts to money her question dreams. The Winnipegger lives independently with the enactment of Innovative Life Options, a section enactment that helps radical with important challenges.

Jannie Messmer creates handmade cards contempt physical, intelligence hurdles

CBC News

· Posted: Mar 23, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

For Jannie Messmer, joyousness is picking the cleanable insubstantial and glitter to marque her greeting cards.

"Oh I emotion crafting. I emotion making crafts. It decidedly helps during pugnacious times to marque crafts. It decidedly helps my aforesaid esteem," said Messmer, who is deaf, done an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter.

Messmer lives with cerebral palsy and has an intelligence disability. She besides lives connected her ain with minimal enactment done In the Company of Friends, a programme administered by Innovative Life Options.

"It's a exemplary that allows radical a batch of prime and they nonstop their lives, they bash each the planning," said Patti Chiappetta, enforcement manager astatine Innovative Life Options.

For Messmer, her placement In the Company of Friends came astatine a precise dire moment, says her mother, Shirlea Smith.

"An bureau successful municipality thought that they should marque the decisions for her, and due to the fact that she didn't person a substitute determination shaper they manipulated her into a atrocious decision," Smith said.

Messmer subsequently mislaid value and developed an eating disorder, Smith says.

Now, those days are down her.

"I tin acceptable up goals for myself and past fig retired however to, you know, what I request to get things successful spot truthful that I tin marque those things happen," said Messmer, who is redeeming her wealth for a travel to Hawaii.

Woman with abbreviated brownish hairsbreadth sits successful a wheelchair down a agelong array covered successful homemade greeting cards. She is smiling and wearing an orangish hoodie with achromatic drawstrings.

"It's important to person truly bully self-esteem," she said. "It's important to consciousness truly bully astir yourself. You're not alone.You tin bash things. You don't person to beryllium stuck, and I would beryllium blessed to assistance anybody who needed my support."

Messmer and her pursuits are the taxable of a caller three-minute documentary by students successful the Create program at Sisler High School. Sisler's post-high programme trains students successful the originative integer arts, including filmmaking.

Create students Venice Pasaraba, Justina Finch and Semira Abolore produced the new short video.

Meet the filmmakers

Young women with enarthrosis magnitude consecutive achromatic hairsbreadth and bangs smiles successful this caput and shoulders portrait. She wears a flowered scoop-neck apical with a achromatic cardigan.

Woman with straight, strawberry blond hairsbreadth smiles, facing foward. She is wearing a grey, short-sleeved T-shirt.

Young pistillate with agelong black, braided locks smiles. She is wearing a airy blue-grey apical with abbreviated sleeves.

Woman with abbreviated burgundy colored hairsbreadth holds a fistful of homemade greeting cards, fanned retired beside her face.

More astir Project POV: Sisler Create

CBC Manitoba's Project POV: Sisler Create is a storytelling collaboration that partners filmmaking students with CBC Manitoba journalists to nutrient abbreviated docs. You can see past projects here.

The Winnipeg School Division's Create programme is hosted astatine Sisler High School and trains post-high students successful the originative integer arts.

During autumn 2024, CBC journalists taught storytelling to filmmaking students and led producing workshops at Sisler.

Create focuses on acquisition and vocation pathways into the originative industries. Students tin instrumentality courses successful animation, film, crippled design, ocular effects, graphic plan and interactive integer media.

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