Happy New Year!     Time for a quantum leap in the year of the Monkey -Yeah, that’s my year! It has been years since I’ve gone on a vacation. So, last week, I flew to Hawaii and fell in love with Hawaii’s natural beauty and the legacy of people who had made a difference in the whole Hawaiian community and in the world.  This time, I felt like traveling through the eyes of an artist or writer, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings during her 1939 stay or Mark Twain’s letters during his 1866 visit……..  O’Keeffe and Twain were once in Hawaii….Who knew! On my 2nd day in Hawaii, I headed to the Honolulu Museum of Art —just a 20 minutes bus ride from where I was staying. It’s an inspiring architectural design, and I enjoyed just going to the museum to hang out. But, when I saw the painting of O’Keeffe hanging at the museum—I was ecstatic. The energy and excitement I felt in the moments before seeing that masterpiece with my own eyes is the same energy many of us feel about incomparable and incredible natural beauty and wonders of Hawaii. The whole island is like a living, breathing artist at work, providing the connective, emotional tissue in the form of majestic and verdant cliffs, well-kept pristine beaches, entrancing botanical gardens, eye-poppingly beautiful hibiscuses, a vibrant bird kingdom, symbolic Hawaiian public arts throughout, the colour, the blue, and the “Way of Aloha” (To Love) – It is indeed a beautiful world, a paradisiacal ecosystem. MALAMA A’INA – Important Hawaiian saying meaning “to care for.”  Gratitude comes in many forms. I thought about the gratitude I felt toward the locals I encountered during my trip –  especially towards wheelchair users. From hula and surfing, to festivals and funerals, one finds examples of the Hawaiian culture’s intimate relationship with...

By Sean Yoon Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball Born and raised in Kerrisdale through the late 70s, Dr. Krishna Pendakur can be described as someone whose work speaks about his passion towards helping this country, this city he grew up in and this world in which economic inequality represses the poor. Dr. Krishna Pendakur is currently a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University. His work in economics fundamentally seeks to develop a toolkit to describe and measure efficiently the landscape of social issues impacting our well-being such as economic inequality, discrimination, and poverty.   It was during his bachelor studies in sociology at UBC when Krishna ventured towards a 4th year course title in economics which was welfare economics. This course introduced the economic aspects to the issues of social welfare and economic inequality that Krishna had been interested in for a long time. His interest in economics grew, eventually leading to his doctoral studies at UC Berkeley. Krishna’s research at the time was focused on the distribution of income vs. the distribution of consumption and on the measurement of household characteristics such as the cost of raising children, which you need to know in order to measure the distribution of income or consumption. In particular, if you want to measure inequality and the data you have is household-level data, then you need to have some way of comparing apples and oranges, like families with children to families without children. They have different needs so if they have more money it doesn’t mean that they’re better off; you have to have a way to scale or deflate household incomes per household characteristics.   Much of Krishna’s research was done in collaboration with his brother Dr. Ravi Pendakur, a professor in the Department of Public...

By Chris Kay Photo Courtesy of Chris Kay The word community is one we hear frequently in the news and in our personal lives. In Vancouver, we might read a story that mentions the business community or the artist community. A controversial development is sometimes said to be opposed by the local community. We even have a network of buildings across the city called community centres! Clearly community is an important thing. So what exactly does it mean? It turns out there is no single definition of what a community is. But people who study communities have come up with a few ideas. Many communities we experience are groups of like-minded individuals, or people with a common practice. The running group you meet every Thursday evening or the knitting circle that you attend every Saturday afternoon are communities, based on common interests. There are also communities related to our vocation. We might feel part of a community of medical professionals in a hospital, or a community of small business owners on a particular street. For example, in my work I’m part of a community of scientists. In my neighbourhood I’m part of a community of gardeners. These communities tend to evolve naturally as we find people who do the same things we do. When people spend time together through hobbies or work, they tend to become familiar with each other. But people who don’t know each other also form communities, sometimes connected by their identities. The community of a specific race or religion may share common needs, challenges, or beliefs that bring them together for advocacy, even if they don’t have specific activities in common. In this sense, a diverse place like Vancouver has many communities of identity, overlapping in countless ways. As a...

By Katherine Dornian Photo Courtesy of Bhavna Solecki Therapist, businesswoman, activist, healer, philosopher – it’s difficult to pin down an exact title for what Bhavna Solecki does, since her work is all-encompassing enough to defy simple description. As the founder of Inner Evolution Healing Centre and now as a member of the planning committee for the Kerrisdale Permaculture Garden, Bhavna seeks to foster mental, spiritual and community balance in everything she does. For the past 15 years, Bhavna has run her holistic practice with the goal of building communities around the pursuit of “mindfulness” – the harmony of the mind, body and soul achieved through healing foods, meditation, exercise, and other curative pursuits. Though she holds a BA in psychology, her practice is primarily based upon Shiatsu and ancient Indian and Chinese medicine. It also features a significant amount of spiritual counselling, which she believes is directly linked to mental and physical health. “Doctors may try to take away pain,” she tells me. “But you cannot do that unless you first identify its source.” Because of this, Bhavna finds that therapy becomes a very immersive experience; she cites the paramount importance of fostering relationships with her clients, putting empathy at the forefront of her approach to healing. “If you don’t feel it, you can’t help,” she says, and makes a point of telling me that she uses the word “help”, not “treat”. Her process must be team effort with the individual, who must be willing to fully participate. Since she gives full autonomy to her patients, she trusts that they will take that step towards healing when they are ready, at which point she is truly able to help them. It is this act of trust that Bhavna states is one of the most...

By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky Photo by Noriko Nasu-Tidball     “When I teach, I am motivated by the students, rather than the content.” Bassett begins her interview citing her teaching doctrine. Her remarkable journey is peppered with people, daily encounters, art…in short, a cultural interaction with the Japanese language.           Nestled in the midst of the vibrant neighbourhood of Kerrisdale, Martha Bassett and I sit, enjoying the view of misty trees and dew-covered leaves and bushes before us. Bassett is currently a Japanese language teacher at the Senior Campus at St. George’s School in Vancouver. Yet, she is far from just an instructor in the language: Bassett is responsible for the inauguration of the Japanese language program at St. George’s. Since 1992, Bassett has been sharing her love of Japanese language and culture with her students. “In order to sustain interest, there is a lot of other stuff we do, other than language,” Bassett remarks. Indeed, in addition to the language itself students in her classes are exposed to Japanese food, film, history and art, to name a few.            We enjoy green tea, imported from Japan; its delicate simplicity seems to reflect our tranquil surroundings. It is here that we begin Martha Bassett’s remarkable journey. And it is here that we return full circle, like the ever-rising sun.                      Despite being born and raised in Southern California, Bassett remarks that Japanese culture was always a part of her early childhood. Her father, being a soldier in the Second World War, regarded the Japanese as a “worthy enemy” and Bassett recalls, “Asia was always in the background”. Her appreciation for Asian culture suited her well in her early adult years when Bassett found herself wanting to travel. With little formal education, Bassett was inevitably drawn...

  By Leonni Antono             “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” – Jane Jacobs             Guest speaker Jim Diers draws on his past experience as the Director of Neighbourhood Development in the City of Seattle to highlight the importance and viability of neighbourhood empowerment in improving quality of life and solving community problems. By examining the existing crises – such as economic, social and environmental – he explains the reasons behind people’s estrangement from their communities and thus posits that a strong local community is the essential basis for change, which begins with community involvement in neighbourhoods, leading eventually to a collaborative effort from both the government and groups of individuals in order to promote sustainable asset-based development at a community level.             Delving into the main reasons behind the divide between the government and the individuals of society, Diers sheds light on the various roles that can be played by both parties respectively, and concludes that in order to engage the government in the community, it is indispensable to change the government and how it views its citizens. Ideally, the government “supports the community to work on its own priorities through its own associates”, and the citizens in this case become what Diers calls the “producer”, which implies people’s involvement in and contributions to changing the community for the better. In the words of Diers, people nowadays have forgotten about the role of community. Due to this, many human resources are squandered and not utilized.             However, the aforementioned crises have made people more cognizant of the importance of neighbourhood, and to change the community for the better – to solve societal issues like safety, etc. – it is requisite...

Lunar New Year Celebration Concert All are Welcome!...

    Hi all – Neighbourhood Small Grants and Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grants 2016 is launching in one week on Monday February 15th! Please find more information and apply online atwww.neighbourhoodsmallgrants.ca And please help us spread the word! The deadline for applications this year will be Monday April 4th.  This means you’ll have a full 7 weeks to get your applications in. We look forward to seeing all of your ideas! As always, please review the application guidelines carefully before applying. If you have any questions or need help with your application, please don’t hesitate to email me at faithg@kitshouse.org Faith Greer | Coordinator of Volunteers Kitsilano Neighbourhood House 2305 West 7th Avenue, Vancouver, BC   V6K 1Y4 P:  604 736-3588 | Ext. 124...

  Hello, Opera Zone Series is Here Every 1st Sunday afternoon! Bring your friends and come listen and sign along with professional opera singers! Amazingly beautiful pieces are on the program. Tea and cookies at intermission   March 6th, April 3rd, May1st, June 5th, July...