Covenant House Vancouver

Last week I posted the first of eight pages from a young person's comic strip that depicts her experience in the pyschiatric ward faced with mental health and addictions issues.  It a startlingly powerful piece and we applaud her courage for creating it and for allowing us to share it with our readers. 

Please note that some of the language in the comic may be offensive to some readers. 

Comments, as always, are welcomed.

Part One: 

Part two continues and I am posting each frame separately to make them easier to read.  We welcome your comments on this provacative and expressive comic.

 

 

 

Next week we will publish Part Three.

 

 

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The DTES (Downtown Eastside) Connect will bring together several lower mainalnd NGOs who serve homeless and street involved people in Vancouver.  A media resource centre, the DTES Connect will provide access to organizations and their spokespeople/clients to the international media during the month of February.  For more information, contact DTES Connect.

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Each month our crisis shelter manager appears on CKNW's The Christy Clark Show to discuss parenting teenagers.  Many different topics are covered and we can't get to all the questions from callers, so we welcome your questions and will do our best to answer them quickly.  To submit a question go to Ask Covenant House. We will pick the most popular questions/themes and the answers will be posted on the blog.

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I am going to post a page from a young person's most amazing comic each week for 8 weeks so you are going to have to check back to see what happens. 

Please bear with me and the size - technical difficulties!  Thanks.

 

 

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A few weeks ago, Aaron Hutchinson came down to Covenant House with an idea. He told me about how he felt when he saw a young person on the street asking for money. The thought of young Vancouverites in such troubled situations moved Aaron into action and he started thinking about what he could do to help them on a larger scale.

He toured our Drake & Seymour Street location and asked a lot of questions about our programs and services for young people up to 25 years of age. Aaron wanted to try to help them make positive changes in their lives and saw Covenant House as an organization that could help make that happen. And so, Aaron embarked on his ‘Change for Change' initiative.

He has involved 18 restaurants in the downtown core, dozens of friends, and Juno nominated band Marianas Trench. The goal: collect as much spare change as they possibly can (the group is aiming for 6000 pounds of the stuff!), and put it all together to make a larger impact.  Click here to see the Marianas Trench video promoting this fundraiser.

The ‘Change for Change' buckets around the city are filling up quickly and on February 7 the fundraiser will conclude with a weigh in party at Ginger 62 where all proceeds will go to Covenant House Vancouver. 

Thanks Aaron for all of your hard work!

Below is a list of participating restaurants:

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Yesterday, our youth versus staff floor hockey game was held at the Roundhouse in front of a crowd evenly split in its allegiance. Won by staff 13-12 in a shoot out, the game brought out many youth from our shelter and ROP programs both as participants and spectators.

As I was watching the game, I was thinking how amazing it was to see the youth simply having "fun". I was thinking about from where these youth have come and how so many of them haven't had the opportunity for a lot of fun in their lives, and I got teary. I felt proud that we were providing this chance for fun and fellowship.

Plus it was really FUN for me to see our staff run their butts off, dripping in sweat, feeling their "age" compared to the youth who didn't seem phased in the least.

Our young people also take yoga classes on Friday thanks to the folks at Flow Yoga (part of the YYOGA chain, who also just generously donated $2500 from their Karma yoga classes in November and December). Thank you YYOGA!

Those of us who exercise regularly know how good we feel during and after we break a good sweat and it was awesome to see our youth feeling good and having fun - they so deserve it.

Here's Matt, one of our CSS/Outreach workers after his first period as goalie

 Staff cheering after their narrow victory

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We were stoked to learn that the Christmas Eve Jazz Vespers concert at St. Andrews-Wesley raised $5,433.64 - thank you to all who attended and gave so generously!

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For a lot of people, the Olympics coming to Vancouver is a wonderful event. It is a chance for our Canadian athletes to shine, a way to showcase Vancouver, boost the economy and provide a fun and exciting time.

But not everyone feels this way; many people are angry with how our city is treating its poor and homeless. Some people feel that the mass amounts of money being spent on the games could have gone to better uses to help our city and its residents. Others are concerned that there is an attempt to hide the downtown Eastside and push its people out of the public eye.

There have been many stories about this as well as events, protests and discussions featuring opinions on both sides. We invite you to share your opinion about Vancouver, the Olympics and how you feel it is affecting our residents.

Here are some different stories and blogs on the topic:

Homelessness change
Seattle Times
Toronto Star
Vancouver Sun
VANOC

What are your thoughts?

 

 

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The BC Court of Appeal has recently ruled that Insite will remain open. This has been a very hot topic causing debates not only in Vancouver but throughout Canada and the world. There are many different perspectives on this issue from that of the drug user, health care workers and hospitals, outreach workers and the general public. We are  curious to hear your opinion about this topic and we invite you to read about it below and have your say.

For the full story please see the following links.

Vancouver Sun editorial
Vancouver Sun article
National Post article

So what do you think?

 

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I can't speak
I can't feel
Feel upset
Makes me unable to speak.
I drink
Tea; it keeps me warm
Booze; it numbs my pain.

Pain
I feel it every day
Temptation
Deadly sins
I want to...
I can't
I must stay focused
I must drink more tea
Keeps me warm.

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