February 1, 2022 Carnegie Newsletter

401 Main Street Vancouver Canada V6A 2T7 (604) 665-2289

HTHEIR SPIRITS

LIVE -WITHIN US"

31st ANNUAL WOMEN'S MEMORIAL MARCH

MONDAY FEBRUARY 14, 2022 @

10:30 AM GATHER AT MAIN AND HASTINGS For family

and community

remembrance

NOON MARCH BEGINS AT MAIN & HASTINGS.

@

With stops to commemorate

where women were last seen or found

The Merrior'ial March is an opportunity to COInetogether to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters in the Downtown Eastside and to dedicate ourselves to justice. This event is organized and led by wornen and non-binary people because Indigenous vvorriert, girls, t-wo spirit & trans people face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. All welcome. COVID-protocols: social distancing and masks required. Livestrearn available on youtube and facebook.

Website: http://womensmemorialmarch.wordpress.comIArtwork

courtesy of Christiane

Bordier

Psychiatric Inpatient Unit! Fish Do Cry for Janet Frame Rate your mood from one to ten, the nurse says.

And I want to give her a poem, so the nurse writes non-compliant and I say pi.

And that makes me even less compliant.

It was the closest I could get to saying a poem.

A patient asks if I'm writing memoirs, poems, a to do list. All of the above? None, I say.

I hope that one day he reads this.

Though that would be against hospital policyto write this to begin with.

A chess game plays, the patient and the guard.

I try hard to resist saying that Nabokov explained that Lewis Carroll based Alice on a pedophile chess riddle where the pawn is queened by sacrificing her protector.

And which I think is the pawn in this game and which the pedophile.

The patients pace around in blue and green pajamas.

A painting from someone I know hangs on the wall.

A patient says she has voices rather than hears them.

I hearfriends rather than have them.

A worker asks if I will read this poem. I laugh.

I tell him I will find something-if I can find something that won't get a note on my chart.

I never get back to him.

'It

Outside the hummingbird feeder hangs for birds that will never come to feed.

Rain falls-tell us your favourite thing about rain, they ask us. I want to say how it foams at the mouth but then it will be another year until discharge.

in a room with no one in it.

They still haven't fucked off.

And they probably never will.

The volunteer comes at three with the therapy dog that's afraid of people.

This poem won't fuck off.

They come to my room frequently with pens and lists, doing the rounds, Santa says you've been good, Simon says swallow this.

Now go play in the sandbox.

My little gods, monopoly top hats, I should be playing bingo, I should be being social.

The bell tolls: One fish, two fish, fuck fish, blue, I type, You know you're in a psych ward when, the nurse says; privacy is a privilege level so high, no one has yet seen it.

•

Away from the nurse's glare a patient tries to molest me then cries. And I tell him I'm sorry because I really am.

I try to colour in the lines but I can't so I go back and forth with a crayon over a drawing of an owlI call it Owls Do Cry For Janet Frame, saved from a lobotomy because her book won a prize.

Fish do cry too.

Which is the front door and which is the back?

One patient keeps asking and I keep sayingThere's no difference-but she just keeps on asking.

I should just point and say, this one.

I grab onto the leg that wants to run but can't and grab the other that wants to get comfortable.

Every institution is a playground for reliving childhood trauma.

The patients flock to the windows and meal trays like crows.

They know that it isn't actually their last b~t ?ne of ~any, . too many-bleached white pamphlets of listings of Ingredients.

Turnips and chili-one packet of tea, one packet of pepper.

I used to have a roommate who said fuck off to no one. Now I am that roommate

I can't help it, I explain.

That's what we're here for, they respond.

To beat you down like a puppy. Fatten you up, dissect you. Look, a brain and a heart, we'll fix that.

You must tell us your secrets or we'll pry them open from you. Where your tonsils are, we'll take those, a gown for you. Restraints and a rocking chair.

We'll be mommy, daddy, physician, nurse, spiritual aid.

Open up. There's still plenty left inside you.

Simon says-we'll beat the poet out of you.

Oppenheimer Park Updates ,Effective Wednesday, January 26th - the park team will be able to work out of the field house! As it is still a construction zone, only staff are allowed in part of the field house.

From "the Library Were you born in the year of the Tiger? You must be very brave!

Don't forget to check out VPL's online event Lunar New Year: The Secret of the Red Envelope happening on Thursday February 3rd from 6:30-7:30pm with Jeffrey Wong and Doris Chow talking about the history and cultural practices behind Lunar New Year. In the Carnegie Reading Room we have a wonderful display of books and DVDs made by Izzy for you to peruse that highlight Chinese authors and stories. By the time of this publication there will be some tiger themed pouches filled with goodies for our patrons to take with them.

What would you like to read next? We are looking to enhance our collection with new fiction and non-fiction books with your help and input.

We would be incredibly grateful if you could take the time to drop by the library and interact with a new display (also made by Izzy!) where you can write down the types of things you're interested in reading more about. Want more books on aliens to fuel your next short story about our friend Kazoo? How about some new local poetry books to honour the talent that frequents the Centre? Let us know and we'll send your suggestions onwards and upwards. ~ Danielle

Removal of fencing ~ the west side now set for mid-late February.

Reopening of the Park fully is set for end of March. I will start working on a transition plan with the staff team for this. We should all think about how and when we want to celebrate the reopening with community.

Children's Playground - Discussions have begun to remediate the children's playground. These are only preliminary discussions - but at least the redesign of the playground is on the table. Please let me know if you would like t9 be a part of the conversation and community engagement.

Humanities 101 Walking Hum 101 is a great program run out of the University of British Columbia and, over the last 20+ years, has offered a selection of talks, courses and interactive experiences for people in the Downtown Eastside and Downtown South who have little or any history with university-level stuff.

Up until the pandemic the sessions would be twice a week in person at the Point Campus ofUBC. Bus tickets, meals and even childcare costs were covered and different professors would give lectures on their areas. Now, and since 2020, the presentations have been online and more recently there have been walking tours with maybe 20+ masked participants taking care while walking.

The first external tour was held at the end of 2021 and what was on offer were the murals painted on buildings in Mt Pleasant. The intricacies of the process and interactions with owners and the Mural Project organisers helped artists portray their work in amazing displays, mostly respected by those who 'tag' surfaces. The tour ended near Main and Broadway' near the 4-storey depictions of a young Indigenous woman (who Lisa David had in her Sparks group at age 5) and the oldest optician in Mt Pleasant.

The most recent tour was held on January 27, beginning at Richards and Dunsmuir and the plaza holding large depictions of weaving of the Musqueam Nation. Each student was asked to pick one place in the Downtown Eastside that had special meaning for them and the tour was roughed out to get us to most places over the next hour and a half. We stopped at a building owned by the Fisk family that the elder Fisk had steadffistly refused to sell. BC Hydro had wanted the entire block on which its headquarters sits but Fisk refused to give way to what he saw as mindless expansion. He saw corporate takeovers as just increasing the divide between the haves and have-nots.

Stops on the walk included the building across from Victory Square, where artists and locals had once brought much vitality to the area. The one talking spoke of how SFU is being mindful of integrating into the community. The next stop was the PACE entrance, which the speaker described as a refuge and place of strategic planning for people with ties to the sex trade and their legal rights. We walked past

•

Woodwards, talking of the struggle to get housing and services for low-income residents with bits of the occupation story (eagle's nest near the "W") and the back-stabbing by developers. Down to Water Street and some ofthe old hotels that have been either redone into condos or are now on the shit list for bad places to live. The speaker told of living in one in the 60s and how ties to the arts still keep him going.

The statue of Gassy Jack got more than just a rallying point for the next stop. Under the story of him starting the first saloon was the fact of him marrying a 12 year-old and calls to take the statue down. The next stop was the alley formed by the wall of the building now housing the Pidgin Restaurant. This was picketed for some time when it opened because of the narrative of its owners that 'all this'( meaning the streets of the area) was going to be wiped out .soon to make way for very expensive stuff and local residents were adamant about our Right to Remain. The mural painted on the alley wall depicts much in the way of actual history of BC and the injustices of the Indian Act. Down the alley and across the street is the Downtown Eastside Womens Centre and two speakers talked about the services and supplies that are available to women in the area. Also mentioned was the opening of another women's centre on the first floor of the New Dodson Hotel with later hours.

We paused outside the Four Sisters Housing Coop, with a speaker talking about how Gordon Campbell and his NP A cohorts had tried to kill the project several times, saying that families and children didn't want to live in the DTES. Money motions require 8 of 11 votes and there were 4 NP A councillors. They were gotten past when a bureaucrat found an obscure method to make the issue a non-money motion: it passed 7-4 and Four Sisters is one ofthe best run co-ops in the country.

The final stop was Camegie Community Centre.

Speakers talked about the wealth of programs and services both in the building and at Oppenheimer Park. Then all who had gotten to the end intact were treated to dinner upstairs.

By PAULR TA YLOR

The relationship between Stars and Humans Born in Fiji Islands as a carefree kid. Life was awesome and played soccer and field hockey. Kind and humble. Life was like freedom and people were wonderful. Working for the Hydro company and traveled to villages, working on my electrical apprenticeship as I follow stars, and let it guide me to the future by understanding that I came from one of it, that fell to the earth and shared the protons and neutrons that that made humans and the earth. For me understanding the star alinement to the Universe in coordinating X and y-axis, positive and negative, dates and time, the calendar. North and south poles, the magnetic fields.

The Latitudes, The Equator, Balance of being good, bad and ugly and being grounded to nature is very important to us the human, the animals not forgetting I existing species for the past and the future. We are all connected, by electronlike energy. An example is an Ingenious artwork the Dream catcher.

While following my natural path of mine, I got tangled with life that brought me depression, anxiety, and addiction. I pretended to be normal and happy. I didn't want to inconvenience anybody else with my suffering. I become an alcohol addict, cocaine addict, and sex addict growing weed and got connected with the gangs, became a gangster, a dealer, and my mental health declined. There was a lot of danger, pain, and hurt feelings. Eventually, I felt trapped by the addiction, lifelong anxiety, and the pressures of gang life to a breaking int. I needed to get out of this rage that I have suffered, it hurt so much. I know I needed to change and recovery in my mind.

While doing drugs, making money, and running after other things, I was really looking for a connection to my free-spirited nature. And hiking expeditions at UGM made me overcome Depression, anxiety, and Addiction that is a lot like ajourney up the mountain. There is pain and struggling. But I take baby steps. I know one step leads to another. When I finish, I'mjoyous. I'm thinking, "I did this. I thought I could never do this." Those small steps have led me to a better life I describe as abundant. Today I am healthy working downtown east side, studying Permaculture design at UBC Farm, and most importantly I am being that free-spirited soul Thank you to all the people that helped me Recovery, work, volunteer, friendship and resident at Union gospel mission, Carnage, salvation army, UBC humanities and science, Powel clinic Center, Ingenious friendship Centre, work BC, The Vancouver ministry of health and government of Canada.

Joel Kumar

VOLUNTEER

PROGRAM

UPDATES

Hello Carnegie Volunteers, Happy Lunar New.year, I hope you're staying safe and keeping well in the midst of the Covid-19 Omicron and variant cases. For volunteers who celebrate, I hope the year of the tiger 2022 bring you health, luck, and happiness.

We encourage you to follow important messaging from Public Health Orders, including physical distancing, stay home if you do not feel well, frequent hand washing and wearing your face mask.

We are continuing the Returning and New Volunteers orientations into February. Volunteer opportunities will continue to be limited based on safe areas of programming, to ensure the health and safety of all community members, volunteers, and staff.

These are the training requirements, including health and safety protocols, that all volunteers will need to know and follow in order to return to volunteering at Carnegie.

Here is what you need to know: We are inviting both people that have volunteered at Carnegie in the past and new volunteers for training sessions The new and updated "Volunteering at Carnegie" training, which includes new mandatory health and safety protocols, is required for all new and returning volunteers Food Preparation, Runner, and Server roles are being offered at this time - other positions will be added as Centre capacity allows Tutor, Computer tutor, and Receptionist positions for the Learning Centre are available but limited to certain days Only scheduled shifts are being offered at this time - drop-in volunteering opportunities will be added as Centre capacity allows Sign up for an upcoming Volunteering orientation and training session if you: A returning Volunteer (No application needed) New volunteer: make sure you have completed a volunteer application Are able to commit to 1 regular scheduled shift (3 hours) per week, the shifts available will be mornings 9am-12pm, afternoons 1-4pm, Evenings S:30-8:30pm (Learning Centre hours are different, please connect with them directly for available shifts, and no drop in volunteering is available at this time) Are able to commit to the full 4 hours of "Volunteering at Carnegie" health and safety orientation and site tour (2 hours) and role training (2 hours) All City of Vancouver volunteers are required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of onboarding and ongoing volunteerism. Candidates may only be exempted from this requirement if they request and are approved for an accommodation based on a reason related to a Human Rights Code ground (such as disability). Such a r~uest must be made during, not after, the recruitment process.

Upcoming

Orientation

dates:

TUESDA Y Feb 8- Returning and New Volunteers- lO:30-2:30pm (Last 2 hours with Kitchen if right) SATURDA Y Feb 19- Returning New Volunteers- lO:OO-2:00pm(Last 2 hours with Kitchen if applicable) TUESDA Y Feb 22- Returning !New Volunteers- lO:30-2:30pm (Last 2 hours with Kitchen if applicable) Once again, these training sessions are now being offered to RETURNING AND NEW VOLUNTEERS, additional orientation dates will be shared in February. For those volunteers who have already returned, thank you so much for your ongoing time, efforts, and commitment!

• If these opportunity are not the right fit for you, please feel free to explore some ofthese volunteer resources for tips on how to volunteer and other opportunities:

What is the eagle thinking?

"MY tr~e you essnote" "MY spot vou essnote" "waKe up so we can have a fair fight" "Bears JUStruin the neighbourhood" "Can I eat it?"

"Can it eat me?"

"Neighborhood has gone to Shit"