Service Above Self: Voices for the voiceless

By Kitt Brand on September 30, 2025.

Sometimes it is gloriously tempting to see what the stars of our own youth are doing today. Who knew? Brigit Bardot is an advocate for animal welfare. Clint Eastwood promotes rigorous health and nutrition. And Harry Belafonte encourages social justice on the global stage. So, what about local standouts, many of whom started on the stages of the Medicine Hat Rotary Music Festival? Let’s look at what just two of them are doing.

Rose Bowl winner Anjali Mishra graduated from Medicine Hat High School in 2017. Two years earlier, during National Poetry Month, she accepted the challenge of Calgary’s mayor to other leaders that poetry be read in every city council. She was invited by then Mayor Ted Clugston, himself an advocate for poetry, to recite her carpe diem piece, “The Short Time Before You Flatline.”. So how is she filling her “short time” now?

Her graduation year, she was the Rose Bowl winner of the Rotary Music Festival. She used her $1,000 scholarship prize to attend the University of British Columbia in International Relations and Affairs. COVID restrictions didn’t slow her momentum. While at UBC as a Policy Research Assistant, she assessed how Canadian trade infrastructure supported by sustainability and inclusion could be established to attain global goals.

Can we realize how crucial her work then is now? While still at university, Anjali co-founded and served as executive supervisor for ReImagine17, a youth-led non-profit reimagining a future where 17 United Nations global goals were achieved, including support for children and women’s health.

She was based in New York City as a Junior Political Advisor Intern for Canada at the UN. She joined the prestigious Monitor Deloitte, a multinational strategy consultant firm serving governments and major organizations, and worked as a consultant refugee caseworker in Egypt through St. Andrews Refugee Services (St.ARS).

For the 1.5 M refugees, she specialized in helping unaccompanied children and youth in Cairo, assessing their safety, shelter, health, legal status, and emotional well-being. When there was an incorrect age assessment or concerns about sexual and gender-based violence, she advocated for them through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to get fast-tracked registration allowing access to services and travel within the city.

Since many countries, including Canada, do not accept unaccompanied children and youth as refugees, their status is often grim. Through her work with St.ARS, she has learned the profound impact of programs designed and led by former refugees. On leave from Monitor Deloitte, Anjali serves at St.ARS Romero House, where she lives alongside refugees in Toronto, advocating for and learning from them.

Another success for Medicine Hat is Tylor Anton, singer, actor, writer, producer, performance coach, and teacher. Born and educated in Medicine Hat, he performed extensively in the Rotary Music Festival, was Concerto Competition Vocal Winner, Award winner for Musical Theatre, Provincial Award Winner for Classical Voice.

Outside the Festival, he excelled at the provincial level in classical voice and musical theatre, particularly enjoying roles in Rent, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The producers, and Next to Normal. With the support of his grandparents, Randy and Shirley Eirich, Tylor pursued post-secondary training in voice and theatre at Grant MacEwan University (Edmonton) and Randolph College for the Performing Arts (Toronto) and earned a Master’s in Musical Theatre at the University of Surrey (UK).

Known personally now as Ocean Antin, they stayed productive during COVID, founding Out There Singing, a Queer and gender-affirming studio, with intense lessons in acting and voice for stage, movie, and TV professionals, many from the LGBTQ community.

Another of their enterprises was Queer Your Voice, an international collaboration with Jaspis Mangelschots to help vocalists from traumatic backgrounds seek embodiment, selfcare, and find their voices.

Ocean also was the creator of Drag Out Your Voice, a program blending technical vocal training with drag performance, encouraging singers to explore expression without binary limits. These programs and classes continue to provide a community and family for singers, rappers, actors, and anyone reclaiming a voice.

As if that weren’t enough, this 34-year-old founded Camp on Fire productions in 2021. Projects so far include The Bounce, a TV pilot created with alumni from Schitt’s Creek; Kim’s Convenience; and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Ocean has written, produced, and starred in 10 short films. Their Solitude Divine (2025) is currently in production and considered their most important work to date. Another project is a feature film, Story of Venus, a semi-biographical work about a trans singer from a conservative community who finds belief in their voice.

Jose’ Camargo, with an MA from the Academy of Film in Vienna, directs. Michael Haneke serves as mentor; Kaia Biedrzycki is producer and actor. This film aims for inclusion at Cannes, the Toronto International Film Festival, and major European competitions.

Already one of Ocean’s films, called Interchange, also directed by Jose’ Camargo, has won three international awards. When Ocean isn’t coaching, teaching, or advocating, they are performing, often as Oceana Dix in Toronto’s cabaret and drag scene.

Internationally, they were featured in a 90-minute piano and vocal act at Hotel Mercurio and in a set at La Noche in Puerto Villarta. Ocean’s goal is to create a supportive space for LGBTQ, Black, Indigenous and women’s voices, too often silenced, and to manifest a world where all voices can be strong, beautiful, and celebrated.

These are just two Rotary Music Festival alumni who are using their “short time before … flatline” to make a difference in the world, to bring hope and freedom to others. And, you, what are doing with your “short time”? Consider spending some of it with Rotary?