By Sean Yoon   Every life is sacred. Choosing to embrace non-violence, peace and love as a way of life, Magdaleno “Leno” Rose-Avila is a human rights activist. After Martin Luther King Jr.’s death in 1968, someone came to him and said, “You have to stand up today. If you love Martin Luther King, then you have to defend what is right.” That is when Leno made a promise to himself that he would dedicate his life to helping people. From that moment forward, he became an activist and started demonstrating and defending human rights.   “If you don’t value other people’s lives, why should they value yours?”   For over a decade, Leno has worked with former gang members in El Salvador and LA through the organisation he started called “Homies Unidos,” or “Homeboys United.” Homeboys United worked with former gang members and youth to help them break away from violence and gain life skills through education programs, employment programs and various forms of mental health support. Leno recalls listening to former gang members for 90 days before he even said anything to them. “How can I talk to them if I don’t know their reality?” He said. “Most of the time we don’t take the time to listen, we always have an answer for somebody. What about listening? What is your pain, what are you thinking, where are you?” Leno came to discover that the people he met with were often very smart, but they were poor and have had very few opportunities to lead lives other than through violence.   What is the value that we place on a person’s life? Leno once had 70,000 dollars in his retirement account. He spent it all to start Homeboys United, and then put...

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By Lara-Sophie Boleslawsky (Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society) Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball Walking in, one is greeted by a jovial atmosphere; the afternoon sunlight filters into the room, illuminating the dark wood of the piano at the front of the room. There is a small buzz, with the audience waiting in anticipation for the concert to begin. We begin with the classics: Jane Perrett’s soprano voice is soars as she sings ‘Quando Me’n Vo’, teasing her lover as Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème. It is then Gerard Satamian’s turn to take the stage, and the tone immediately shifts as he laments love in Poulenc’s heartbreaking ‘Les chemins de l’amour’. Each performer embodies not only their respective characters, but also the songs themselves. It is a truly magnificent spectacle, and the brief intermission is needed, if only to refresh after the emotional outpour of each performance.      Indeed, we are treated not only to Jane Perrett and Gerard Satamian’s brilliant voices, but also to breathtaking piano instrumentals by Jane’s son, David. Performing classics such as Chopin’s ‘Prelude in B Minor’ and Beethoven’s first movement of ‘Leichte Sonate in G Major’ he brings a voice to these songs, flitting about the room as if truly alive.      Following the intermission is a brief performance by mezzo soprano Ayako Komaki. She beams brightly before beginning her performance, only to transform before our very eyes, becoming the tragic Queen Dido, mourning her own lamentable future whilst singing ‘When I am Laid in Earth’. The intensity present in the room soon reconstructs, with Jane Perrett’s rendition of the classic Disney tune, ‘When You Wish Upon A Star’, whereupon everyone is urged to join in. Continuing along this nostalgic frame, Gerard Satamian ends the concert with ‘If I Were A Rich Man’...

By Keiko Honda Community Engagement Chair, Kerrisdale Community Centre Society Why Needs A Collaborative Garden in Kerrisdale? Who Needs? How do we build a community through a garden? Why Permaculture?  These are the kinds of questions I have been often asked by our staff and kCC board members, while the Community Engagement Committee has been spearheading the Kerrisdale Permaculture Garden project with the core team of visionary community collaborators and volunteers since last summer.  It is always good to remind ourselves that community is built best through using our bodies and hearts together – sowing, planting, digging, sweating, singing songs, harvesting, eating together, sharing poems, and handing things to each other. That is how the community is build. As we create together, it reflects us all. As such, the Kerrisdale Permaculture Garden is the act of creating a shared vision based on a community’s needs and assets, culture and history, and local sustainability. Every community, every school, and every household needs a garden. Simply put, the benefit of the garden is creating a social capital and a source for healthy foods.  Permaculture is about becoming conscious. Permaculture guides us to mimic the patterns and relationships we can find in nature. At the heart of permaculture is creativity and the ability for people to adapt and evolve in light of the conditions of modern life. We can say that a garden is a reflection of permaculture – its the integration of everything. A garden will be memorable, beautiful, functional and resilient over time because it integrates all these different considerations.  Kerrisdale Community at large desperately needs opportunities to renew our connection to nature and its aesthetics, create resilient communities, and empower children to both survive and thrive. As there is no space and culture at the centre that explicitly fosters the constantly growing and evolving global movement based on an ethical...

The Opera Zone When: Sunday, April 3rd, 2pm Where: KCC Seniors Multi-Purpose Room Open to the Public, FREE, ALL are...

2nd Annual Kerrisdale Sakura Festival All are Welcome!    ...

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 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...

    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...

Copies of “The Limited Edition” are now available for $10 each.  You can now reserve your copy by calling 604-257-8100 or email to hondakeiko@gmail.com, and pick up at the Kerrisdale Community Centre reception desk during 2016. First-Come, First-Served!   Acknowledgements    “Three years on a stone (will make a stone warm)” is the Japanese proverb meaning that perseverance will win out in the end. THE KERRISDALE PLAYBOOK RE-COLLECTION is the celebration of cultural transformation with our last full four years of continuous convivial “conversation” with the community. In this limited edition, we have selected 16 articles out of over 150, which represent a unique expression of the life force coursing throughout our community. Acknowledgments almost always begin by saying there are countless people to thank. This is particularly true this time. I want to thank all of the people, the interviewees, and readers over the past four years who have contributed to the Kerrisdale Playbook for great conversations. They have all inspired me. In particular though, I want to thank my team comprised of the 30 devoted young and the young-at-heart over the last four years. They all have brought their wholehearted work and created a new culture – the equivalent of what Barbara Ehrenreich would call – “Dancing in the Streets.” The new culture is symbolically a collection of community stories that evoke joy and exuberance in taking time to appreciate what’s around us, finding connections with people and nature, and expressing creativity in everyday life. Each and every article has offered a genuine, life-affirming and community-engaging conversation that allows us to find joy in the other fellow. Bravo to the team and what a pleasure to work with all of you! Of course I want to thank the Kerrisdale Community Centre Society...

By Anonymous Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball Tony Tabarsi is a husband, a father and a respected pharmacist, who has been living and practicing in the Kerrisdale area for more than 20 years. Southland Pharmacy, serving the Dunbar-Southland neighborhood and beyond, is a successful pharmacy owned and managed by Tony for more than two decades. He is also an active community volunteer and has been teaching at English classes for the new immigrant population for over 10 years, without pay. However, Tony’s road to success, as you may be surprised to learn, has not been the smoothest of roads. Going back in time to the decade of bell-bottoms and disco, Tony was a young bright high-school student in the graduating class of 1976 in his home country of Iran. Although he had applied to and gotten accepted at the University of Tehran’s school of medicine, he was later refused a seat simply because of his less conventional religious faith. Disappointed yet determined, Tony saw no choice but to archive his first university acceptance letter and follow to embark on a journey to the Philippines in the hopes of realizing his dreams of higher education in the health care field. Although not happy with the quality of the education he was receiving, Tony was enrolled in a Dentistry program for three years in the Philippines until the new, post-1979 revolution government of Iran, ordered that Iranians studying abroad including Tony, return to the country immediately. Afraid of religious persecution upon returning, Tony decided to seek asylum at the Philippines’ office of the United Nations in Manila. More than midway into his studies in the Philippines, Tony was yet again moving; only this time, he was preparing for life as a refugee with a one-way ticket to...

By Sean Yoon Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball     If I were to ask you the question, “What is sake?” How would you respond? I think the prevailing image in most of our minds would be of something poured from a small, slender flask container called a tokkuri into small cups to drink exclusively with Japanese cuisine at a Japanese restaurant. This is arguably the more traditional image of sake, but rejecting this image and pouring sake from a Bordeaux style wine bottle instead is Masa Shiroki, an artisan sakemaker based in Granville Island. To Masa, sake is wine and it can be enjoyed in many different settings, not just as an accompaniment to Japanese cuisine. “I wanted people to consider sake as wine because it is called rice wine in the first place and people know that. Every time I ask the question to people, ‘So how would you translate sake to English?’ People pause for a second and reply, ‘It’s a rice wine right?’ You just said it. It’s a wine. So think of the sake I’m pouring for you as wine and in order to do that, I thought it would be important to change the image of sake visually, so I decided to use Bordeaux style wine bottles. At his store in Granville Island which is titled, “Artisan SakeMaker,” Masa currently produces fresh domestic premium sake called “Osake,” sourcing purely local ingredients from BC and is the first of its kind in Canada. The rice used for the sake is grown on leased land with partnering farms in Abbotsford and South Surrey, totalling 16 acres of farmland. Sustainability is a major concern for Masa, who takes special care to ensure that all of the sake being produced under his business...

By Sean Yoon Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball On the corner of West 4th Avenue and Stephens Street is a clothing business that strives to produce premium quality men’s casual/dress shirts, jeans, suits, coats and accessories personally tailored to meet your needs and fit you comfortably. A clothing label which began in 2002, this brand is Andy Yuen Couture, where Couture stands for tailoring using superior quality fabrics and materials. Alongside the use of premium materials is the quality of customer service with a focus on person to person, face to face interaction that is provided by Andy Yuen, who is currently functioning as the tailor, designer and CEO for the brand. Andy asserts that, “Great clothing starts with great fabric.” The Andy Yuen Couture label uses high quality fabrics such as Supima and Egyptian Giza 45 or 87 cottons carefully selected for their softness, strength and lustre, or brilliance of colour. New pure wools are also used, which are chosen for their long staple yarns, double twisted and milled in Italy for superior durability. In addition, they are certified to be clean and skin friendly. For Andy, clothing can often be described in terms of taste, where he says, “With food, you pay for the quality of taste and in clothing, it’s the feel and touch.” Andy devotes himself to bring awareness to and educating customers about the advantages in quality that premium fabrics can provide. Andy Yuen was 3 years old when he arrived in Canada with his family from Hong Kong. Having settled in a small town in the prairies with a population of around 1100 people, Andy’s father was looking for tailoring jobs as he was an experienced tailor by profession, but there simply were no opportunities available at the time....

  Announcement     Dear Kerrisdale Friends,  KCCS Community Engagement Committee is delighted to announce that we have granted the Park Board permission to move ahead into the detailed design phase of “Kerrisdale Permaculture Garden (tentative name), which was proposed to be located in the south-west corner of the Kerrisdale Community Centre building (5851 W. Blvd.) near the playground. We are in the process of team building and community involvement prior to the anticipated official approval in January 2016. Kerrisdale Permaculture Garden, will be a collaborative garden and maintained collaboratively by the KCCS Community Engagement and Garden committees, community volunteers and our community partners including, but not limited to, Vancouver Edible Garden Society (VEGS), Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS), Frisch Farms, Southland Farms, and Kerrisdale Lumber. We will be hosting several public meetings in the next coming month. We need your involvement. Please stay tuned. Thank you,  KCCS Community Engagement and Garden Committees (Chair: Keiko Honda) About the naming,,,,, Permaculture garden emulates patterns in nature. The three ethical principles of Permaculture are as follows: Care of the Earth  Care of People  Return of surplus to Earth and people (also called “Fair Share”)  The ancients knew that humans needed community. All living things are interdependent on each other, including people. We humans are communal and social animals, and just like the rest nature. When we share our surplus produce, when we share our skills, knowledge and experience, these actions builds bonds between people which all works to foster a sense of stable collaborative...

  What were the most memorable events of 2015?     Watch our 6 minute highlight reel of the Year in Review!       Best wishes for 2016 Kerrisdale Community Centre  ...

By Josh Coward Photos courtesy of Josh Coward   Seventy years ago, on the baseball diamond located on Oppenheimer Park, in what used to be the heart of “Japan town” in Vancouver, the great Vancouver Asahi Baseball Team played it’s last game. In their daily lives, those Canadians of Japanese descent were not allowed access to certain jobs no matter how well educated they were. They were socially segregated at public places all the time. Only on the ball park were these “Japs” able to prove themselves as equals. The story of the Vancouver Asahi Baseball Team is not just about baseball, it was also how they played the game. In order to counteract the adverse conditions, the manager, Harry Miyasaki introduced a strategic style of offence and defense, putting great emphasis on discipline and training. This new type of baseball came to be known as ‘smartball’ or ‘brainball.’ The Asahi baseball team was a symbol of the Japanese Canadian struggle for equality and respect, and despite being disbanded and interned, left a legacy of inspiration for future generations of all Canadians.  Now, 70 years after the disbandment of a great team, a new spark begins to flicker. On October 11, 2014 a group of Japanese Canadian and Japanese people got together to revive this legendary team and formed the Canadian Nikkei Youth Baseball Club (CNYBC).   The CNYB is dedicated to creating healthy communities through the game of baseball. Inspired by the legacy of the Asahi Baseball team, for their skill, perseverance and accomplishments, it is our dream to bring back the Asahi Baseball Team to the Nikkei Community and Canada. We are a new club and are open to all, without regard to gender, ethnic origin or residency.   At the CNYBC we are...