Thank you again for your support of the NOW! creative education programs. Here’s an update from us!

1) NOW! play performances (February 2010)

NOW! partnered with Katimavik (www.katimavik.org) Vancouver to bring creative sustainability education to elementary schools and Katimavik program volunteers. Under the mentorship of Shawn MacDonald, a playwright and director at the Vancouver Arts Club, the Katimavik Vancouver troupe brought engaging performances of the 2008-2009 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition junior category winning play “The Essay” to ~400 kids in Richmond, BC: Errington Elementary, W.D. Ferris Elementary, and McKinley Elementary. Thank you Beau Llewellyn and Marco Adamovic from Katimavik for an amazing opportunity to connect with dedicated youth volunteers from across Canada. We look forward to further collaboration with Katimavik!

2) Upcoming NOW What? conferences (May 2010):

• NOW What? Conference – Cochrane Edition

• Resourceful Thinking

3) 2nd annual Act NOW! Playwriting Competition (September 2009 – March 2010)

Entry submission was closed on March 31st, 2010. Decision from our judging panel will be announced on Earth Day, 22 April 2010. Outstanding entries will be posted on our website.  Here are the stats:

23 participants
Average age: 19
Average number of pages: 14

12 communities
Toronto, ON (3)
Markham, ON (1)
Mississauga, ON (1)
Anmore, BC (1)
Richmond, BC (1)
Surrey, BC (2)
Coquitlam, BC (1)
Burnaby, BC (2)
Vancouver, BC (8)
Lanley, BC (1)
Odejaye, Nigeria (1)
Hampstead, QC (1)

19 entries
Senior entries (age 19-26): 8
Junior entries (age 14-18): 11

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Next Steps:

- putting together the 2010-2011 NOW! team (Join our team)
- exciting collaboration opportunities with educators, students, community leaders, organizations, and institutions to take the impact of NOW! creative sustainability programs to the next level

Thank you again for your time, and happy holidays! :]

Sincerely,

The NOW! Team

We forget that homelessness in such a gorgeous, vibrant city is morally unacceptable.

How about let’s address the root cause of poverty – let’s empower homeless people through entrepreneurship?

THE EXPERIMENT

We will link a couple top entrepreneurs in Vancouver to mentor a couple homeless youth interested in starting their own ventures, and document the process from idea, product/service, revenue, to continuity to analyze the project’s impact and effectiveness. We would like as much community involvement as possible – planning, execution, etc. We hope that this small experiment could add to the social change movement of the business and entrepreneurship community mentoring the poorest people to help them full-fill their potential and their dreams.

OUR ACTION PLAN

We would like to make this project as grassroots as possible by turning to you for ideas and suggestions. We admit ignorance in homelessness and we would like to learn as much as possible. This grassroots project will be planned and carried out by the community. We invite you to share your experience, insights, and expertise on the community-powered project plan here.

SHARING THE STORY

We invite you to join us in our experiment through three possible components:

1. Our blog
We will reflect and document the process of this project from start to finish to facilitate a platform for discussion and support. Everyone involved in this project could be an author of the blog. We look forward for your comments, support, ideas, and suggestions!

2. A documentary
Again suggestions would be awesome.

3. Multimedia
Pictures, videos, dance, stories, theatre… whatever you can think of!

I strongly believe in the power of creativity, commitment, and community support to empower homeless people to achieve their dreams and potential. Hope to hear from you :]

[afterword:

This project is now led by May Zou (may.zou@now-org.com) and Heather Sarsons (heather.sarsons@now-org.com), Vancouver. We are currently in the process of learning more about the issue by volunteering in the community and talking to those who have been dedicated in these issues.]

Cheers,

Janny
janny.ke@now-org.com