Covenant House Vancouver

Following the death of Curtis Brick a homeless man that died last summer due to issues caused by heat, Vancouver has put in place an extreme-heat strategy. We talked about this issue in a recent blog posting.

Vancouver has started putting the strategy into effect by placing temporary water fountains around the city in key places. News 1130 has covered this story and The Province has also weighed in.

At Covenant House we are continuing to help our youth keep cool by providing lots of water, sunscreen and reminding youth to seek out shade.

We hope you and yours are having a fun, healthy and safe summer!

Do you have any thoughts about this strategy? Or ideas to keep cool?
If so please share them with us.

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First we want to send a big thanks to each and every one of you who have voted for Covenant House Vancouver through the Pepsi Refresh Project. Your daily votes are helping to keep us in the running for the $100,000.00 grant.

Below are comments taken from our Pepsi Refresh page from youth that we have worked with. I hope our young people's comments help keep you motivated to vote for us and let you know that you truly are making a difference in the lives of our youth.

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We would like to thank Bryan Adams and The Bryan Adams Foundation for making a donation that will provide access to all of our programs to one of our young people for an entire year.

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Last night I had the privilege of seeing Cirque du Soleil's new show Kooza, and it was spectacular. Not just spectacular, but breathtaking, amazing, magical, thrilling, funny, and exciting and every other positive adjective you can think of.

We at Covenant House Vancouver are so lucky that Cirque du Soleil has chosen to support us again this year. All the proceeds from the tickets we sell will come directly to Covenant House Vancouver and our young people. Cirque du Soleil also donates tickets so our youth can attend the show. Some of our youth were sitting behind me and they were so excited and were in awe of the performances.

Here are what a few of our young people had to say:

"I thought I had seen all there is to see, but after that show I felt that my mind had been blown away"

"Heart pounding till the last minute"

"Breathtaking and adrenaline filled"

"I can finally die on my deathbed because now I have seen Cirque and it's something I have always wanted to see"

"I was born and put on this earth to have the chance to see Cirque du Soleil"

"During the performance I died and was reborn many times. Not only were the skills portrayed breathtaking, they were beautifully entertaining. I am still shocked the day after"

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Watch a great movie and see "The Big Picture" by contributing to the community at the same time! The Big Picture is a movie fundraiser featuring the film Inception and organized by youth volunteers of S.U.C.C.E.S.S.'s Youth Leadership Millennium (YLM) Program. Proceeds from the event will benefit Vancouver's Covenant House, a local charity that has been providing 24-hour shelter, drug, alcohol and mental health counselling, as well as many other areas of support for homeless youths, a group estimated to number 15,000 per year in British Columbia.

Please join us on Friday, July 23, from 3 - 6pm at the Rio Theatre for a screening of Inception, the exciting sci-fi action thriller from Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) that features a star-studded cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Cane and more!
For advance tickets and/or questions, reach us at ylmcc2010@gmail.com. Tickets can also be purchased on the event day at the Rio Theatre, starting at 2:45pm.

When: Friday July 23, 2010 3:00pm
Where: Rio Theatre | 1660 E Broadway (at Commercial Dr.)
Admission: $10

About S.U.C.C.E.S.S:

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Last Saturday I had the opportunity to present at Mental Health Camp. The theme of this year's conference was "Breaking the Silence" so my presentation spoke to our use of "On the House" in helping to break the silence around mental illness. I spent some time giving background on how our mental health program came to be and the amazing results the initial pilot project produced (which lead to the program becoming a permanent offering at Covenant House), such as:

The average wait-time for a youth to see a psychiatrist has gone from 6 months to 8 days

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After not seeing changes in the rankings for the Pepsi Refresh project we have now jumped 27 spots and are currently in 2nd place. It is all thanks to you and your daily voting.

Please keep voting, tweeting and facebooking about Covenant House Vancouver and the Pepsi Refresh project.

Thanks for all your hard work: now go vote and win us $100,000.00.

How can you help?

1. Go to http://www.refresheverything.ca/login

2. Then go to http://www.refresheverything.ca/covenanthousevancouver

3. Click on the "Vote for this idea" button.

You will hear the sound of a Pepsi can opening and your vote will be counted.

4. Do this once per day, as the winner will be the idea with the most votes by August 31st.

What else can you do to help?

Put a reminder in your Outlook / I-Calendar
Set as your homepage
Share with friends and family

Please remember that, the more votes that we receive, the better a chance we have at winning and continuing to make a difference in the lives of our youth.

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Watch a great movie and see "The Big Picture" by contributing to the community at the same time! The Big Picture is a movie fundraiser featuring the film Inception and organized by youth volunteers of S.U.C.C.E.S.S.'s Youth Leadership Millennium (YLM) Program. Proceeds from the event will benefit Vancouver's Covenant House, a local charity that has been providing 24-hour shelter, drug, alcohol and mental health counselling, as well as many other areas of support for homeless youths, a group estimated to number 15,000 per year in British Columbia.

Please join us on Friday, July 23, from 3 - 6pm at the Rio Theatre for a screening of Inception, the exciting sci-fi action thriller from Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) that features a star-studded cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Cane and more!
For advance tickets and/or questions, reach us at ylmcc2010@gmail.com. Tickets can also be purchased on the event day at the Rio Theatre, starting at 2:45pm.

When: Friday July 23, 2010 3:00pm
Where: Rio Theatre | 1660 E Broadway (at Commercial Dr.)
Admission: $10

About S.U.C.C.E.S.S:

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Howard, one of our Community Support Service youth workers, just popped in to tell me a great story as a follow up to the youth versus staff hockey game.

He told me that last year, before we started renting the gym at the Roundhouse, the youth and staff would play hockey near the beach. Howard recalled two young men who really "went at it" during a game, slashing each other's sticks, eventually breaking out into a full-fledged fight.

They were pulled apart and it turns out that the two had recently been discharged from the Shelter together for inappropriate behavior and they were taking their anger out on each other. One of the youth was not as good of a player as the other youth. The youth that was the better player was really rubbing the not as good player's nose in it and teasing him lots.

Well, fast forward a year and at our recent hockey game, the two young men were playing again - this time cheering each other on and having a blast. Howard mentioned that the one young man had really improved his hockey playing skills after having noticed the other youth giving him pointers. Apparently the two are the best of friends, are currently staying in our shelter and doing very well.

It is amazing what a difference a year can make in the lives of our youth.

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Covenant House International is urging all Americans to support Bill H.R. 1623, a bill that would expand the protection of Megan's Law, mandating reporting requirements for convicted sex traffickers including pimps against minors to engage in international travel, and preventing entry into the U.S. by any foreign sex offender against a minor.  Click here for more information.

We have written about human trafficking a few times, most recently drawing attention to Canada's lack of a national strategy on human trafficking and we never receive any comments on these posts. Maybe the issue of human trafficking is a "no brainer" and people don't feel the need to comment. I wonder too if human trafficking is still largely flying under the radar for most people - they know it exists but the details are vague and repugnant. For a lot of people, the thought of human enslavement whether for physical labour or sexual exploitation is beyond comprehension.

A few years ago, we had a presentation for our youth workers from a young woman who had exited the sex trade; she had been trafficked throughout Canada and United States and her story still haunts me. She is now an educator teaching organizations like Covenant House how the sex trade and trafficking works and how we can assist those trying to exit. She escaped, many do not.

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