October | 2009 | AHA Media

AHA MEDIA attended a very successful Photography Opening : Children Live Dream Here – Urban Landscapes, Children Photography – Inner City Children’s Voice at Chapel Arts 304 Dunlevy in Vancouver Downtown Eastside Thursday Oct 29, 2009

October 31, 2009 ahamedia Leave a comment

Part of the Heart of the City Festival in Vancouver Downtown Eastside http://www.heartofthecityfestival.com/festival-09/october-29/

Celebrating the Voice of the Strathcona Children, Princess Avenue Interpretive Walk

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Below is a photo of Lead Artist Anne Marie Slater with students

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Below is a video of the Visual Arts – CHILDREN LIVE DREAM HERE

The presence of children in our community is the focus of this show of photo works by students from grades 4 to 7. Photographer and lead artist Anne Marie Slater collaborated with the students on an interpretive walk of Princess Avenue and their photographs reveal the sky, the street, and the industrial side of Hastings Street re-linking the historic north/south connection to the waterfront.

The perspectives of inner city children are captured in photo stories and audio recordings, on view in the main gallery and in projections on the outside of Chapel Arts. Children Live Dream Here: Urban Landscapes is a community arts initiative with the participation of local organizations, community members and the support of the Festival and the City of Vancouver Great Beginnings program.

Sponsored by Strathcona Elementary School, Strathcona Community Centre Association and Chapel Arts, with funding from Port Metro Vancouver and Telus-Vancouver Community Board.

This was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a Nokia N95 mobile cameraphone. April is passionate and skilled in making Nokia films by exploring mobile media production through the camera lens of a cellphone. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or message me at http://www.facebook.com/AprilFilms

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Below is a photo of Irwin Oostindie of W2 http://www.creativetechnology.org with his Daughter reading a photo book made by school children

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Below is a photo of Terry Hunter of Heart of the City Festival http://www.HeartOfTheCityFestival.com

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Below is a photo of a young artist drawing with chalk while Savannah Walling of Heart of the City Festival looks on. http://www.HeartOfTheCityFestival.com

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Below is a photo of Savannah Walling, Anne Marie Slater, Irwin Oostindie and daughter looking at the Powerful Projection of Photos taken by students of Strathcona Elementary from the Garage across Dunlevy Street to the side of Chapel Arts!

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Thanks to the following who made the Princess Avenue Interpretive Walk very possible! 🙂

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Below is Anne Marie Slater with Nathan Wiens of Chapel Arts http://www.ChapelArts.com at the end of a successful evening !

Double Victory for Pivot in SRO Battle

October 29, 2009 ahamedia Leave a comment

Reposted from Pivot Legal http://www.pivotlegal.org

B.C. College of Pharmacists and Attorney General side with Pivot to create legal protections for methadone patients living in Downtown Eastside hotels

Vancouver, October 29, 2009 – The B.C. College of Pharmacists and the B.C. Attorney General have taken legal positions with Pivot Legal Society against infamous pharmacist and hotel owner George Wolsey, who earlier this year evicted two tenants who refused to buy methadone from him.

In 2008, pharmacist and SRO hotel owner George Wolsey was exposed for offering kickbacks and illegal inducements to attract methadone patients to his Gastown Pharmacy. The Gastown Pharmacy was shut down as a result of the controversy, but that did not stop Wolsey, who also owns the Palace and Wonder Rooms hotels, from requiring all his tenants to buy methadone from him at his hotel. This practice allowed Wolsey to make more than $6000 per year in dispensing fees for each methadone patient at his hotel.

In May 2009, Wolsey evicted two of his tenants on 24 hours notice because they opted to use another pharmacy to fill their prescriptions. When the tenants challenged those evictions at the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB), the RTB stated that the Residential Tenancy Act did not protect them because Wolsey was providing “therapeutic treatment or services” in the form of methadone. The RTB made this ruling despite evidence that no treatment, services or supports of any kind were made available to tenants.

In September, Pivot applied to the B.C. Supreme Court for judicial review of the RTB decisions. Last week the B.C. Attorney General, which represents the RTB, said in a filed response to Pivot’s application that it supports Pivot’s position and agrees that the Residential Tenancy Act should apply to the Wolsey hotels.

“These tenants, who were illegally evicted, spent many nights on the streets as a result of the RTB’s failure to protect them from Wolsey’s greed,” said Laura Track, lawyer for Pivot Legal Society. “With the Attorney General and Pivot presenting a common position to the court, we feel confident the cases will be sent back to the RTB for a full and proper hearing.”

In addition, the College of Pharmacists of B.C., in response to concerns raised by Pivot over Wolsey’s practices, announced that it has amended its bylaws to prevent pharmacists from limiting patients’ choice of pharmacy. The new bylaws make the types of contracts used by Mr. Wolsey illegal. The College also informed Pivot that it has sent letters to Mr. Wolsey advising him of the changes and noting numerous complaints against him for these practices.

“We are very happy that the College of Pharmacists and the Attorney General have responded in the way they did,” said Track. “This kind of exploitation is completely unacceptable, and we hope that Mr. Wolsey amends his practices before we are forced to bring further legal actions against him.”

Categories: Community Engagement, Downtown Eastside, DTES, Health, Housing, PIVOT Legal, Poverty, SRO Hotel, Twitter, Vancouver, Vancouver Downtown Eastside

AHA MEDIA sees Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch) play at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

October 27, 2009 ahamedia Leave a comment

AHA MEDIA sees Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch) play at Witch of Endor Pub http://www.witchpub.com in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

Rockafellas – http://www.rockafellasduo.wordpress.com

——————————————————————————————————————-

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch) play Pride and Joy at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

——————————————————————————————————————–

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch) play Werewolves of London at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

——————————————————————————————————————-

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch ) play Are You Going My Way at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

——————————————————————————————————————-

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch ) play Every Rose Has Its Thorn at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

——————————————————————————————————————–

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch) play La Grange at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

———————————————————————————————————————

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch ) play Sugar, Sugar at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

——————————————————————————————————————–

In this video, Rockafellas ( Sean Michaels and Al Tkatch play Someone Like You at Witch of Endor Pub in Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada on Saturday, Oct 24, 2009

Categories: AHA Media, Al Tkatch, April Smith, Citizen Journalism, Community Engagement, Hyper Local Citizen Journalism, Media Coverage, Mobile Cameraphone Film and Video, Mobile Media Production, Music, Musician, Nokia N95, Rockafellas, Social Media, Twitter

April Smith of AHA MEDIA was very pleased to attend a meeting at The Shebeen Club in Gastown, Vancouver

October 27, 2009 ahamedia 2 comments

April Smith was pleased to attend a meeting at The Shebeen Club 7pm, Monday, October 26th (.http://www.theshebeenclub.com ) and reconnect with Lorraine Murphy of http://Raincoaster.com and Chris Mathieson of http://www.VancouverPoliceMuseum.ca 🙂

—————————————————————————————————————–

Below is a photo of Lorraine Murphy, Robert Shaer, Chris Mathieson, Salim Jiwa and Dennis E. Bolen.

————————————————————————————————————

April Smith was honored to meet:

Featured speaker is Salim Jiwa, former investigative reporter for the Province, and founder of Vancouverite.com, a new hard-news site. He was the basis for the lead in the CBC series Jinnah on Crime, and he’ll be sharing his tales about being an intimate part of many of the major crime cases of our time and our city.

Salim Jiwa – Editor & Publisher of Vancouverite – High Speed Global News

http://www.vancouverite.com

—————————————————————————————————–

In the next two videos, Salim Jiwa, Editor and Publisher of http://www.vancouverite.com speaks at the Shebeen Club http://www.theshebeenclub.com in Gastown, Vancouver

These videos were filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a Nokia N95 mobile cameraphone. April is passionate and skilled in making Nokia films by exploring mobile media production through the camera lens of a cellphone. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms

—————————————————————————————————–

Categories: AHA Media, April Smith, Chris Mathieson - E.D. of Vancouver Police Museum, Citizen Journalism, Gastown, Lorraine Murphy, Mobile Cameraphone Film and Video, Mobile Media Production, New Media, Raincoaster Media, Social Media, Vancouver, Vancouver Police Museum

AHA MEDIA is proud to present ” It takes a community to raise a garden” by the Green Inner-city Cluster of Building Opportunities with Business (BOB) in Vancouver Downtown Eastside

October 27, 2009 ahamedia 1 comment

On October 31st at 10:00 AM, volunteers are gathering at 700 East Hastings and Hawks Avenue in Strathcona to create the raised bed garden boxes necessary to convert five empty asphalt covered lots into an urban garden that will provide food, employment, and training opportunities for inner-city residents.

If you are interested in contributing to the greening of Vancouver’s inner-city we need volunteers and tools and materials, contact Seann Dory of United We Can for the latest list of what we need. Part of this project involves a mural which will include permanent recognition of the groups that made SOLEfood a reality.

This garden raising represents the culmination of months of work by a dedicated subset of the Green Inner-city Cluster. The property belongs to the owner of the Astoria Hotel who is letting us convert it to a garden in exchange for paying the taxes for the next couple years. We need to begin the conversion this month in order to be eligible for lower taxes.

Artist Rendering

Save Our Living Environment is a sister organization to United We Can which was selected to be the lead organization for our first grant application. From there we got the name SOLEfood for our first urban agriculture project. Today’s coverage in the Metro and on Projects In Place’s blog neglected to mention the financial and organizational support of a number of key partners: