Dear Readers, Spring is a time for renewal!  A time to begin new, exciting initiatives that will impact our city.  For community organizers, spring is a time to re-energize and enhance our entrepreneurial and engagement skills so we are better prepared to help our communities succeed.  Vancouver Foundation Neighbourhood Small Grant (NSG)  & Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grant (GCG) projects are about to take off. As one of the Resident Advisory Committee members for the Westside, I am delighted to announce that in 2016 there was 25% increase in applications from those submitted in 2015 and so many new and exciting projects are being funded this year. What a great time to share creativity, gain perspective on community sustainability issues, and connect with more people in the neighbourhood! Check the NSG/GCG website for the upcoming project announcements. As part of the Kerrisdale Community Centre’s Community Engagement initiatives, we are open to NSG/GCG projects for free meeting spaces on a availability basis in order to play an important role in helping our citizens to continue to grow and our residents to thrive on their own terms. Together, we will reach hundreds of westside residents through such community-led local initiatives in an effort to ensure that the opportunity of creativity and social connection is available to all.  Another exciting new initiative to connect more people is Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS)’s SkillShare project funded by the federal government. The Kick off event is just around the corner – Sunday May 15, 9pm – 3pm at Kitsilano Community Centre. Please come out to see what it is all about! And, finally, we are hosting the Vancouver Regional BC Heritage Fair 2016 at Kerrisdale Community Centre on Saturday May 21, welcoming Vancouver’s top 120 students who will be presenting their research...

By Lara Boleslawsky While Upcycling may be a new comer on the sustainability scene, it is unjust to simply call it a trend. Upcycling is a way of life. Upcycling breathes new perspectives, new ideas, new life into everything it touches. But what is Upcycling?          Just ask Colleen Rhodes, the creative and executive genius behind Meins Designs, a local sewing business that promotes Upcycling in the fabrics of its design.          “Upcycling to me means taking something that you would normally throw away and making it into something new. It means making something new out of the old,” says Colleen. To showcase this amazing new concept, Colleen will be participating in the new Skill Share series; a new and exciting community engagement project brought together by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society. Colleen and Skill Share have partnered in order to promote and teach local communities about the social and environmental impact of Upcycling.        Skill Share is an initiative centered around the mandate that everyone has a skill, an art, a talent that they can nurture and grow and eventually develop for the purpose of teaching others. Colleen is one of the featured artists in Skill Share, as she will be teaching and supervising sewing workshops, all of which circumvent the main theme of Upcycling. The workshops take place once a month, with each catered to a specific project. These include: leg warmers made from an old sweater, skirts made from unused jeans and wine or produce bags made from unwanted shirts and sweaters.          “You don’t need to get everything brand new. Today everyone thinks the bigger the better, but it doesn’t need to be that way,” Colleen remarks. Through ‘Upcycling’ unused, and perhaps even unloved, clothes becomes re-purposed and...

By Susan Tsang For Artists In Residence (AIR) Series session 104, the guests transform Keiko’s cozy home to a salon that is of fluid conversations and ideas while appreciated the vegetarian lasagna and wine. The guests who have already attended the previous sessions are welcoming to everyone, including the first-timers like myself. Amongst the new guests, there are Misha’s students who come for their teacher’s presentation. Michael (Mikhail) Pertsev is a figurative sculptor from Moscow, Russia. He has a studio at Parker Street and teaches at Emily Carr University. He inspires his students to master their skills in sketching and sculpting. They would practice their drawings because Misha likes to make drafts on paper before sculpting. But the one who has a significant presence in Misha’s life is his father who was an artist from the Soviet Union. Misha’s story begins with his father’s artwork, drawing inspiration from the arduous times of the Communist Soviet Union. Seeking to capture the oppressive lives of the Soviet labourers on canvas, his father’s works were marked by strong strokes of dark green, red, and other saturated colours. The images left an impressionable imprint from the distinct lines that are sharp and angular to the subjects’ eyes that are hollowed out by black shade. Yet Misha’s father was not only an artist but also a part of the browbeaten citizens who needed to have his voice heard. He wished to draw the spine-breaking domestic lives of the Russians instead of the style of multi-figure, male-centric artworks. While his piece of drawing might have been controversial since it reflected the reality of the iron-fist governance, his intrinsic disposition to his cultural background made the occurrence of that drawing to be almost inevitable.             Under the influence of his father,...

By Sean Yoon   Every life is sacred. Choosing to embrace non-violence, peace and love as a way of life, Magdaleno “Leno” Rose-Avila is a human rights activist. After Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968, someone came to him and said, “You have to stand up today. If you love Martin Luther King, then you have to defend what is right.” That is when Leno made a promise to himself that he would dedicate his life to helping people. From that moment forward, he became an activist and started demonstrating and defending human rights.   “If you don’t value other people’s lives, why should they value yours?”   For over a decade, Leno has worked with former gang members in El Salvador and LA through the organisation he started called “Homies Unidos,” or “Homeboys United.” Homeboys United worked with former gang members and youth to help them break away from violence and gain life skills through education programs, employment programs and various forms of mental health support. Leno recalls listening to former gang members for 90 days before he even said anything to them. “How can I talk to them if I don’t know their reality?” He said. “Most of the time we don’t take the time to listen, we always have an answer for somebody. What about listening? What is your pain, what are you thinking, where are you?” Leno came to discover that the people he met with were often very smart, but they were poor and have had very few opportunities to lead lives other than through violence.   What is the value that we place on a person’s life? Leno once had 70,000 dollars in his retirement account. He spent it all to start Homeboys United, and then put...

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