Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
0 com

Every Woman Has A Story

Every story can create change.

WITNESS Announces Campaign to End Gender-Based Violence

0 com

charity : water + TOMS

It's back! The new water shoe designed by charity: water and TOMS will help fund water projects for areas in need. When you buy a pair, $5 goes towards wells in developing nations. And as always, for every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need.

Click here for more details.



0 com

Book Review: Half the Sky

Thanks to a thoughtful classmate, I was introduced to the magnificent book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

I could not put it down and read it for two days straight at every available moment that I had (on the subway, in the elevator, walking down the street, etc.). The book was perfectly paced through a series of stories about the perseverance of incredible women around the world despite their grotesquely horrific circumstances. The stories are graphic as well as compelling with issues ranging from microfinance, maternal health, education, child prostitution, honour killings, and the use of gang rape to induce terror among communities.

A definite recommendation for anyone who is human.

For more information on the movement and how to participate in a variety of worldwide organizations, visit Half the Sky.

Add caption
0 com

SVA Impact!: Democracy Now!

We had the great privilege of watching a live broadcast of Democracy Now! and a tour of their beautiful space. So we met at 7:45am (this is 4:45am Vancouver time and I haven't adjusted yet so that's early!) and start our day with news about an anti-immigrant list targeting Latinos in Utah, how Arizona has become a laboratory not just for immigration policy, but a broad range of issues, global warming, and the melting Himalayan glaciers.

Democracy Now believes that for true democracy to work, people need easy access to independent, diverse sources of news and information.  But the last two decades have seen unprecedented corporate media consolidation. The U.S. media was already fairly homogeneous in the early 1980s: some fifty media conglomerates dominated all media outlets, including television, radio, newspapers, magazines, music, publishing and film. In the year 2000, just six corporations dominated the U.S. media.

In addition, corporate media outlets in the U.S. are legally responsible to their shareholders to maximize profits.

And U.S. "public" media outlets accept funding from major corporations, as well as from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has attempted in the past to exert political and editorial influence on public news producers.

Democracy Now! is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers, and foundations. They do not accept advertisers, corporate underwriting, or government funding. This allows them to maintain our independence.

We had the honour of having award-winning journalist Anne Goodman speak to us at length about Democracy Now and their future goals and endeavors for their organization including the constant need for increased awareness to independent news media and viewership.

Democracy Now!

Impact! Design for Social Change










0 com

SVA Impact!: Team Project @ Pratt Gallery

We all met at the beautiful Pratt Gallery to be introduced to the potential organizations that we will be working with for the next six weeks. Each student will participate in the development and execution of a socially-minded team project which is fully implemented with tangible results. This will take the program out of the realm of theoretical thinking and extend it into the real world.

This class gives students the skill set and opportunity to implement an actual social change project, the program will instill in them the confidence, self-motivated and collaborative spirit which is needed if they are to continue this type of work on a professional level.

Each group will identify, develop and execute a solution to a specific problem or need for a non-profit organization or underserved community.

The participating organizations have been pre-selected by desigNYC and the faculty of the Impact program. desigNYC was formed in 2009 by a group of leading designers and design advocates with a mission of improving life in New York City by helping connect the nonprofit and professional design communities.

Healthy Bodegas Initiative; Donya A. Williams, MPH
Many New Yorkers have access to some of the best food in the world, but many others go without any access to healthy food. We want to help bodegas in under served neighborhoods sell healthy local food in their communities. Bodegas are full of processed unhealthy foods and its hard to eat healthfully when that's your only option. We have the produce, but the infrastructure just isn't there to get it to the people who need it most.

We want to build a Healthy Bodegas network in Bushwick and Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. We will start with produce from our farm and then we plan to grow by including our neighbors' farms and their products into the model. We've partnered with a number of bodegas that are interested in selling local product and being involved in our project, but we need help to get our Healthy Bodegas Project going. We want to prove that something like this is possible.

IOBY (In Our Backyards); Brandon Whitney
ioby connects donors and volunteers to environmental projects in their neighborhoods to inspire new environmental knowledge and action in New York City.

ioby stands for “in our backyards” and the belief that environmental knowledge, innovation, action, and service begin and thrive in our backyards. This is grounded in two important commitments.

First, ioby offers an informed step out environmentalism's NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) history that pushed environmental hazards down the path of least resistance into low-income areas and communities of color. ioby builds an untapped funding source and by directing it to decentralized, community-based environmental projects, ioby supports communities with a larger share of environmental problems and fewer resources to confront them.

Second, ioby offers a reminder that the ‘environment’ is not just the Amazon rainforest or the Arctic glaciers, and that tangible environmental work is urgently needed right here on the streets and sidewalks of New York City. Even people who consider themselves environmentalists are sometimes disconnected from their local environment and unable to see the work going on around them. ioby.org creates a forum for people to rediscover, understand, and value their local environment, because we believe the places we live, work, and play each day should be the roots from which we understand the environment.

We think encouraging direct engagement with local environments is the best way to renew environmental action and knowledge and prepare society for the future, so ioby works hand in hand with New Yorkers to support hundreds of organizations that have their own ideas and solutions. ioby.org provides tools and resources that complement the creativity and generosity of civil society to achieve a cleaner, healthier environment and more just communities. ioby environmental partnerships may begin online, but we hope they continue and grow, face-to-face, neighbor-to-neighbor, person-to-place, in our backyards.

Democracy Now!; Miriam Barnard
Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); and on the internet. DN!’s podcast is one of the most popular on the web.

Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates–debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.

Enterprise Community Partners; Victoria Shire
At Enterprise, we create opportunity for low- and moderate-income people through fit, affordable housing and diverse, thriving communities. Central to our mission is Enterprise's fundamental commitment to give people living in poverty an opportunity to move up and out. The award-winning Enterprise Green Communities initiative reflects our targeted focus on expanding the health, economic and environmental benefits of sustainable development.

BLK Projek; Tanya Fields
The BLK ProjeK seeks to address food justice, public & mental health issues as they specifically relate to under served women of color through culturally relevant education, beautification of public spaces, urban gardening and community programming. By creating easily accessible resources and enriching the lives of women who are routinely overlooked and overburdened yet serve an important and critical role in the larger fabric of society, we will strengthen overall mental and public health, as well as elevate the collective self esteem of the larger communities they live in.

Impact! Design for Social Change







0 com

SVA Impact!: Design for Social Change - Day 1

The first day was finally upon us and I don't think it really hit me yet as to the type of groundbreaking program I've been accepted into. No other institution in North America has organized an intensive summer program focusing solely on the conception and execution of real-life projects for social change and I'm extremely excited to be part of it's inaugural launch. I have classmates from all over the United States, Portugal, Brazil, Colombia, Bosnia, and Australia; all ranging from design, architecture, and business disciplines. And I'm the only Canadian!

The first day was filled with free swag, housekeeping rules, and icebreakers, but of course being in New York it was all done with style, right down to the catering! I look forward to "living" at SVA and openly welcome the brand new and exciting things I will be learning from the amazing line-up of guest lecturers and picking the brains of my insightful classmates, all of whom have a genuine desire to make a change in the world.

This is going to be the best summer yet... the most expensive, but the best nonetheless!

Impact! Design for Social Change












0 com

Impact: Design for Social Change


I am extremely excited and humbled to have been accepted into the School of Visual Arts summer intensive graduate design program Impact: Design for Social Change!  I can't believe I'm going to NYC for the summer! The line up of instructors and guest lecturers is amazing!

Impact: Design for Social Change is an advanced program that will run on two parallel tracks; the first will educate students on how to conceive and execute their own projects for social change with a focus on funding projects that are not client-based. At the end of the intensive each student will have a fully developed concept. Along with a personal project, students will participate in the development and full execution of a team project that addresses a pressing need within a predetermined community. On this track, students will roll up their sleeves to take the program out of the realm of theoretical thinking and extend it into the real world.

www.sva.edu/impact


Mark Randall Worldstudio
Steven Heller Heller Books
Chad Boettcher Goodzuma Weber Shandwick Worldwide
Martin Kace Empax
Bob McKinnon Yellowbrickroad
Michelle Mullineaux ESI Design designNYC
Andréa Pellegrino Worldstudio
David Gibson Two Twelve Associates
Milton Glaser Milton Glaser, Inc.
Scott Harrison charity: water
Natalia Ilyin EmersonHarris
Lara McCormick Laramc.com
Jason Rzepka
Edwin Schlossberg ESI Design
Katrin Verclas Mobile Active