by Sarah Allan It’s always a powerful thing when great people create a great documentary film. ‘Big Charity’ is a prime example. A documentary by Alex John Glustrom (Director), Ben Johnson (Co-Producer & Composer) and Catherine Rierson (Co-Producer) looks at Charity Hospital, the oldest continuously-operating hospital in the United States, located in New Orleans. The hospital,…
…An open letter to those Canadians who are Irish, and those who wish they were. By Sinéad Liobhas (Jennifer Lewis) This is a cheeky look at the appropriation of Irish culture in Canada. Though I’m no Jonathan Swift, I wanted to use some typically Dublin humour, in honour of everyone’s favourite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. Ah,…
by Rachel Safeek The difference between human sex trafficking versus consensual and/or voluntary sex work among women is a topic that I’ve been meaning to address for a long time. Oftentimes, when I mention that I work with HIV prevention among Female Sex Workers (FSWs), many incorrectly assume that the women with whom I work are…
by Agnieszka Paulina Marcinek With the recent uproar concerning Ukraine and the EU Association Agreement, the country has turned the European spotlight onto itself – and not merely because of the prospective signing at the Third Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius. Alongside the Association Agreement, Ukraine’s population decline has been of discourse since the Post-Soviet…
by Sarah Allan Happy International Women’s Day! I wish that this day could be spent celebrating the successes and achievements of women around the world, but sadly, though its 2013 and we have come a long way, locally and globally the focus is still on the very real and seemingly ever-present issue of violence against women.…
by Sarah Spence I’ll be honest, I have never been a very political person and I have struggled with finding my identity as a member of the First Nations. I can confidently say that both of these have been because of the barrier that separates the ‘Indian’ world from the ‘White-Man’s’ world. It’s sad to say…
by Sarah Allan with photographs by Tegan MacDonald Gentrification is a huge source of conflict and debate, particularly in Vancouver B.C., where the city changes faster than anyone can keep up with. As a phenomenon, gentrification is not necessarily a negative or a positive thing for a city. Gentrification was defined in the 1960’s by sociologist Ruth Glass as…
by Jesse Nelson I recently received an early Christmas present, a book titled Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre. The book is set in South America in the 1980’s and is about a Chilean-Canadian teenager who spends a decade traveling across and living within countries such as Bolivia, Argentina and Chile with her sister and exiled…
by Justin Shoub Paddy Dadson is not the most typical managing director of an NGO. He is not a bookish intellectual. He didn’t attend an Ivy League university – or any university at all, actually. He doesn’t have a solid grounding in abstract social theory, and he is not particularly well versed in the institutional…
by Kate Patterson It’s not very hard to look around any public place these days and point out several people wearing TOMS shoes. I am no stranger to the brand either, having owned several pairs for the last three or so years. But I recently reflected on just how big the TOMS phenomenon has become…
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