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AHA MEDIA films Sam Sullivan, former Mayor of Vancouver speaking about SALOME – Vancouver’s New Heroin Maintenance Trial at VANDU in Downtown Eastside
Sam Sullivan speaks about SALOME –
Vancouver’s New Heroin Maintenance Trial at
VANDU in Downtown Eastside
Sam Sullivan with Photographer Kim Stallknecht
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The following text is from http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/s…
The Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) will choose a Downtown Eastside location next month and begin taking applications from potential participants in February, according to a Tuesday press release from the Inner Change Foundation, which, along with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is funding the trial. With selection of participants supposed to last only three weeks, that means SALOME could be underway by March.
SALOME will enroll 322 hard-core heroin addicts—they must have been using at least five years and failed other treatments, including methadone maintenance—in a year-long, two-phase study. During the first phase, half will be given injectable heroin (diacetylmorphine) and half will be given injectable Dilaudid® (hydromorphone). In the second phase, half of the participants will be switched to oral versions of the drug they are using.
The comparison of heroin and Dilaudid® was inspired by unanticipated results from SALOME’s forerunner, NAOMI (the North American Opiate Medication Study), which began in Vancouver in 2005 and produced positive results in research reviews last year. In NAOMI, researchers found that participants could not differentiate between heroin and Dilaudid®. The comparison of success rate among injection and oral administration users was inspired by hopes of reducing rates of injection heroin use.
SALOME was also supposed to take place in Montreal, but Quebec provincial authorities effectively killed it there by refusing to fund it. SALOME researchers have announced that it will now proceed in Vancouver alone.
With an estimated 5,000 heroin addicts in the Downtown Eastside and a municipal government that has officially embraced the progressive four pillars approach–prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement—to problematic drug use, Vancouver is most receptive to such ground-breaking research. It is also the home of Insite, North America’s only safe injection site.
The NAOMI and SALOME projects are the only heroin maintenance programs to take place in North America. Ongoing or pilot heroin maintenance programs are underway in Britain, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
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In the following 7 videos, Sam Sullivan, former Mayor of Vancouver talks about SALOME – Vancouver’s New Heroin Maintenance Trial and other things to Members of VANDU and Ann Livingston in Vancouver Downtown Eastside
Videos by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a New Media camera – Kodak Zi6. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
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Below is a photo of Sam Sullivan – Former Mayor of Vancouver, Richard Cunningham of VANDU, Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA, Robert Vincent – President of VANDU, Hugh Lampkin – Vice President of VANDU
Thank you for reading my recent article “April’s Story” by Gillian Shaw – Digital Life Writer of the Vancouver Sun
Merry Christmas Everybody!
I would like to thank everyone who has read the recent article “April’s Story” in the Vancouver Sun Newspaper by Gillian Shaw, Digital Life Writer
In my article in the Vancouver Sun which came out yesterday, Christmas Eve 2009, I reveal my personal journey of homelessness, struggles, poverty, my efforts to do Citizen Journalism and Mobile Media Reporting with AHA MEDIA and the volunteer mentoring of other folks in basic Media training in Vancouver Downtown Eastside
If you have not read my article in the Vancouver Sun, please click on the link
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/techsense/archive/2009/12/23/april-s-story.aspx
It has been a really tough year for us at AHA MEDIA and we are seeking donations of electronic gear and equipment so we may continue to build our community capacity to do mobile media reporting in Vancover and Downtown Eastside
FIDO Pay as You Go Phone Cards for cell phones,
Digital cameras,
SD memory cards,
Laptops/Desktops,
Video cameras,
Audio equipment
We are also looking for donations of warm clothing and food items for our friends and neighbors in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside at the LifeSkills Centre near Oppenheimer Park where we volunteer at
Wish List of Christmas Donations by members of AHA MEDIA and LifeSkills Centre
If you would like to donate FIDO Pay as you go Phone Cards, Electronic Gear and Equipment, Warm Clothing and Food to us at AHA MEDIA and for other folks in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, please email me
Email: Apr@live.ca or through Twitter or Facebook
Thank you very much and have a Merry Christmas! 🙂
April Smith of AHA MEDIA is a featured storyline in ” With Glowing Hearts” – WGH the Movie
Vodpod videos no longer available.
This storyline is from the Documentary ‘With Glowing Hearts‘. It follows April Smith on her journey building AHA Media as the preeminent news source for Vancouver’s DTES using social media for social justice. Along the way April faces many challenges including homelessness
” April Smith is an incredible young woman facing a boat load of challenges. She has graciously allowed us to follow her for the last 8 months and gather the footage we used to compile this story thread. Hers is a story full of both despair and inspiration. ”
A Social Media revolution has been brewing for the past five years on websites from FaceBook, to Wikipedia, to Flickr, and as it spreads throughout the Internet and into popular culture through an increasing number of portals, it is creating a new sense of community and empowerment amongst those who have embraced it.History has shown that poor and marginalized communities stand to gain the most from leaps forward in the democratization of information, so the excitement in areas like Vancouver’s maligned Downtown Eastside about the possibilities of Web 2.0 and beyond is palpable.
With the Winter Olympics less than a year away, billions have been spent in preparations and many poverty advocates are concerned about how the city’s several thousand homeless and working poor will fit into the equation as Vancouver puts on its best face for the world.
Against this background the film examines Social Media in action as a group named Fearless City embarks on a campaign to empower and protect its neighbours with cellphones, video-streaming, and the World Wide Web.
With great thanks to Director Andrew Lavigne and Producer Jon Ornoy !
April Smith of AHA MEDIA is very honored to be featured by Gillian Shaw – Digital Life Writer for The Vancouver Sun Newspaper on Christmas Eve 2009
By GILLIAN SHAW
23 DEC 2009 DIGITAL LIFE
As it comes time to wrap up 2009, I wanted to share the story of a journalist who has inspired me this year.
A citizen journalist – April Smith, who is making an impact not only for her work chronicling the news and stories of Vancouver’s inner city but also for giving back to her community by mentoring others.
April didn’t graduate from any journalism program. Hers was truly the school of hard knocks and her background one of hardship.
I first met April at WordCamp Whistler last January. She was a grad of the Downtown Eastside’s Fearless City Mobile project, which helped residents and artists of the neighborhood learn to tell stories through mobile media.
At the time April said the experience had been ‘life-changing.’
“I have moved from one side of the tracks to the other,” she told me.
The other side of the tracks was pretty ugly. It was a life of homelessness and struggling to survive on the streets.
April shares her story with eloquence and honesty that is all the more compelling because it is free of self-pity. Her optimism for the future is what comes through loud and clear.
You can listen to Vancouver’s CBC radio did with April. And you see her at work in an episode of With Glowing Hearts the Movie. She is @AprilFilms on Twitter.
WGHthemovie.ca -April Smith storyline from Andrew Lavigne on Vimeo.
The mentoring April received is being returned to the community many times over with the creation of AHA Media, a fledgling new media company started by April along with Hendrik Beune and Al Tkatch – AHA coming from the first letters of their names.
April is teaching and mentoring others in the Downtown Eastside, sharing her skills and enthusiasm in the hope of offering alternatives that will help improve lives.
April lives in a single room in the DTES and carries out her work and volunteering on a shoestring budget – no shoestring might be too generous to describe it. When I talk to April on the phone, I know that it’s using up precious minutes that she must buy to recharge her cell phone. I recently found out that the Nokia video phone that April was using in her work was borrowed and had to be returned. So I asked her what she needs to carry on.
While it has been a tough year for media organizations, not many list food and warm clothing on their wish list, but those are among the items AHA Media, which does volunteer peer training at the LifeSkills Centre near Oppenheimer Park, is seeking for its DTES neighbors.
The organization also needs: FIDO Pay as You Go Phone Cards for cell phones, digital cameras, SD memory cards, laptop and desktop computers, video cameras and audio equipment.
If you have any of these things kicking around, consider sharing them with others who will pay it forward many times over.
AHA MEDIA is very proud to introduce a new look to AHA MEDIA’s Website
Welcome to the new look for AHA MEDIA online! 🙂
A sleek new design means faster access to what AHA MEDIA is known for primarily…
1) Social Media Content Production, Promotion, Documentation and Archiving of Events, Projects and more
2) Hyper Local Citizen Journalism Coverage – A media outlet for people of Vancouver and Downtown Eastside to help tell their own stories. Through our social media campaigns we aim to bring an awareness to the Social Justice issues that affect our area
AHA MEDIA is proud to be involved in our Vancouver Downtown Eastside Community! 🙂
- Facilitate others in social media literacy and campaign building
- Community engagement and outreach with social media
- Peer advocacy and awareness for our neighborhood residents.
- Active participation in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside
- Media representation and speaking engagements
Three upcoming and ongoing projects that AHA MEDIA is involved in
1 ) Filming 3 satirical/parody remakes of a “Holiday themed” song involving residents of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside.
2) Part of W2 Community Media Art’s Fearless City Mobile Project – helping to do livestreaming and engage with the Downtown Eastside . We will include their personal thoughts and stories in a very participatory way. http://www.CreativeTechnology.org
3) Being filmed and documented ourselves for With Glowing Hearts, an independent film about social justice, social media, Olympics and the Vancouver Downtown Eastside http://www.WGHTheMovie.ca
Thanks everyone for supporting AHA MEDIA! We really appreciate it! 🙂
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