Vancouver Foundation

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @vancouverfdn facebook.com/VancouverFdn The Imagination Network In 2013, a small group of artists and caregivers in the Sunshine Coast town of Gibsons devised a project that would tackle a thorny question facing communities across Canada: what role do we want people with the experience of dementia to play? For Bruce Devereux, Recreation and Volunteer Manager at Gibsons care home Christensen Village, and Chad Hershler, Artistic and Executive Director of Deer Crossing the Art Farm, the answer was obvious. "We wanted the rest of the community to be aware that these were dynamic and vibrant people," says Hershler. Inspired by a U.S. project, Devereux sat down with a number of Christensen Village residents living with dementia, handed each one a series of photos, for example a wind tunnel, and asked them to brainstorm a story. A few months later, he showed them to Hershler. "I read five and I was sold," he says. "The stories were funny, interesting, profound, visual – all the things that arts groups are trying to find." They held sessions between artists and the seniors living with dementia, aiming to turn some of these stories into art: paintings, songs, even theatre. Those works, when presented during the Sunshine Coast Arts Crawl in October 2015, were a big hit. Now the pair has partnered with Colleen Reed, a faculty member at Douglas College, to see whether this form of arts-based engagement could have larger implications on the experiences of people with dementia. With the help of a $149,736 grant from Vancouver Foundation, The Imagination Network was launched in 2017. Photo: Chad Hershler 2 0 1 7 I V a n c o u v e r F o u n d a t i o n l p a g e 5 MEMBERS OF VANCOUVER FOUNDATION'S YOUTH ADVISORY COMMITTEE CAMPAIGN TO EXTEND VOTING RIGHTS TO PERMANENT RESIDENTS Here's a conundrum: Permanent Residents pay city taxes and contribute to their communities in all kinds of ways, yet when it comes to municipal elections, they don't get a vote. It was an injustice that galvanized the members of the Fresh Voices Initiative, Vancouver Foundation's youth advisory committee. All 18 members, aged 15 to 24, had come to Canada either as immigrants or refugees, and many of them had witnessed first-hand the challenges of exclusion. "The biggest barrier was trying to engage immigrant families to be more involved with schools, and school districts," says Vi Nguyen, Director, Youth Engagement at Vancouver Foundation. "When Permanent Residents can't vote for trustees, when they don't have a say, there's a built-in lack of belonging and inclusion." To that end, the Fresh Voices Initiative has spearheaded the campaign Lost Votes YVR, that seeks to give these people the right to vote in the City of Vancouver. Members of the group have launched a public education campaign and met with more than a dozen officials both at city hall and in Victoria with the hope of giving a voice to Permanent Residents.

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