Q: How are you projecting change?

I am working with an amazing volunteer team on the start-up of a new non-profit called Peace Geeks. We help strengthen the technological and professional capabilities of non-profit organizations working on peace, accountability and human rights initiatives by remotely connecting them to skilled volunteers. Our client organizations gain the benefit of skilled volunteers, while our volunteers (over 100 and counting) can stay at home and have the opportunity to make an impact globally. We also have a secondary objective of raising public awareness about the important work done by individuals and organizations working on these issues around the world. We don’t hear their stories often enough through traditional media channels and we want to help change that.

We want to work on projects that advance the strategic objectives of our client organizations so what that looks like will vary from one organization to another, but projects can include: developing organizational web sites to disseminate important information with relevant audiences; setting up data collection or crowd sourcing tools to assist with research, programming and policy advocacy efforts; implementing mobile phone applications to assist with early warning tools or to support awareness-raising campaigns; creating training programs for social media strategy, web site management, etc. We also work on the development of strategic management and planning skills, including team coaching, marketing strategy, human resources management, program strategy, etc. We will also explore developing new tools or integrating several existing tools if and when we see that it addresses a broad need.

Q: Do you feel film has power to create social change?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, this team initially came together after 14 individuals who didn’t really know each other met up watch the documentary film ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ at the Amnesty International Film Festival this past November. This movie tells the amazing story of the Liberian women’s movement, which played a pivotal role in helping to end the 14-year civil war in that country. When the screening ended, the energy was palpable. Many of us wanted to do something to support the amazing work of organizations such as Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), featured in the film. I have since toured this film across the country for different audiences, and no matter where I show it, people are inspired by the courage and fiery determination of the Liberian women.

Q: Tell me about the inspiration behind your newly founded NGO…

Apart from the screening, the idea for Peace Geeks culminated from my experience in the private sector where I worked on IT projects for eight years, and later in the non-profit sector and with the UN where I worked on peace and security issues. I came to realize that many of the organizations working in this space lacked the basic tools, systems and skills they needed to be most effective with their limited resources. Sometimes cost is the most significant barrier to accessing these tools, but more often than not, it is lack of awareness about the options available or limited access to the skills needed to get them. Some non-profits also may have limited strategic management capabilities and in some cases we may have a role to play in supporting the development these skills.

Another important piece of the puzzle was that I could see that many people with professional backgrounds wanted to contribute their skills and time to support such organizations, but just didn’t know where to get started. We help make these connections and harness this potential. We recognize that while the core work on these issues happens on the ground in the countries where our clients operate, we can nevertheless play an important support role in building their technological and management capabilities so they can be most effective with their resources and make the greatest impact in their communities.

Interested in finding out more about Peace Geeks? Checkout the website at www.peacegeeks.org .

Want to get involved? Send an email to volunteer@peacegeeks.org or register as a volunteer at www.peacegeeks.org/pg/volunteer_registration.php

- Rebecca @rebeccaapeel

In particular, this year’s festival showcased three films that our panel of organizers felt had a significant impact on our audiences. As tradition calls for, we award three major awards at the end of each year’s festival, and this year’s candidates did not disappoint.

Home-grown The Clean Bin Project, a feature film about an everyday couple and their journey to answer the question “is it possible to live completely waste free?” picked up this year’s Best Canadian Documentary Award: “The film depicts a year’s journey as partners Jen and Grant go head-to-head in a competition to see who can swear off consumerism and produce the least landfill garbage in an entire year. This film presents the serious topic of waste reduction with optimism, humour, and inspiration for individual action.”

The award for Best Documentary went to Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson. This film was a crowd pleaser, igniting a sold-out house. It tells the story of a man on a mission to save the planet and its oceans: “The film follows “professional radical ecologist” Paul Watson as he repeatedly flouts the law so that he may apprehend what he sees as the more serious law-breakers: the illegal poachers of the world.”

The Projecting Change Award goes to the film that we feel truly encompasses the philosophy behind our festival. Director Susan Edwards’ Marion Stoddart: The Work of 1000 was this year’s award recipient: “The film details the parallel journey of two characters: one, a young woman discouraged at her future as a suburban housewife, the other, a river – once beautiful and teeming with wildlife – now a hopeless, toxic sludge pit. The basis of this documentary lies in the fact that acclaimed environmental pioneer Stoddart took on and singlehandedly accomplished a huge goal – cleaning up the Nasua River.”

To spice up this year’s festival we ran a contest through social media where we asked our friends and followers to submit a 60 second video documenting how they project change in their everyday lives. We received some inspiring entries – everything from locals creating international movements to one little boy who projects change through being a positive and loving human being in his daily life. The winner of our contest, who also received a $1000 cash prize and the premiere of their video at our closing gala film screening, was the brilliant and hilarious Fair Trade Gangsta Rap video created by the SFU chapter of Fair Trade Vancouver.

Congratulations to the minds behind all of these amazing films! To our audience, we hope you enjoyed each and every one, and if you haven’t gotten the chance to check them out, we highly encourage you to do so. Each film we handpicked for this year’s festival is a beacon for change and hope, and we hope it will inspire a passion within you to fulfill your own goals of projecting change in this world.

– Marisa Woodham (@MarisaWoodham)

The atmosphere was no less explosive as excited Sea Shepperd enthusiasts lined up for rush seating to Eco Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson. Following the film the Sea Shepherd himself took the stage and answered questions from the crowd.

One of my favorite humorous quotations of the night (there were many).

“I’m not ‘wanted’ for anything specific, but people tend to give me a hard time when I cross borders.” – Paul Watson

Checkout the picks from our flickr album…

Live from the festival checkout the feed!

Get into the feed and your tweet voice into the action #PCFF2011 or @PCFFVancouver

Haven’t made it down to a film yet? Checkout the schedule! Great films and speakers tonight and more to follow tomorrow! http://projectingchange.ca/schedule/

Rebecca – @rebeccaapeel

I (Bryce Tarling) was asked to put together a brief interview with the company to learn more about what the company does to promote sustainability. Check out the interview with Richard below!

Q: Tell us a bit about Hemlock Printers..

Hemlock is a family-owned print communications company employing 160 staff who mostly work at our head office and manufacturing plant in Burnaby. We also operate 3 sales offices in Victoria, Seattle and San Francisco. We take great pride in the final printed products that leave our doors each day, as we have for the past 43 years. Our clients range from designers, artists, photographers, publishers, corporate clients as well as the public sector – basically anyone that may need print services.

The constant evolution of our print and media services shows that meeting change is part of our DNA. Digital printing and web-development are two of our emerging services that have quickly become key to our business as we adapt to the changing needs of our customers. Thanks to ongoing input from our dedicated staff, we’ve also incorporated sustainability initiatives throughout our business with tangible results that we’ve formally reported on for the past 3 years. Our environmental practices have led to Hemlock being recognized as Canada’s Most Environmentally Progressive Printer for the past 5 years and in 2008 we were also awarded Most Sustainable Printing Company by Heidelberg, the worlds largest press manufacturer.

Q: What goes into making Hemlock Printers a carbon neutral company?

Our efforts to make our plant and offices more energy efficient on an ongoing basis and our commitment to purchase annual clean energy technology offsets equal to our operationally controlled emissions are the foundation to our Carbon Neutral statement. We find the total operational greenhouse gas impact that sets our offset purchase amount by annually inventorying our emissions from direct fuel use (scope 1), electricity consumption (scope 2), and all the necessary third party services that go into producing our finished product (scope 3).

Q: How did you get involved with Projecting Change?

We are close collaborators with our design friend, Brady Dahmer and we’ve been aware of the festival through the local sustainability networks for several years, and have been excited to see it growing to what it is today. The rest is history.

Q: Tell us a bit about why you think an event like the Projecting Change Film Festival is important.

It’s important for everyone to understand sustainability and not to feel intimidated by it. Film is a great medium for entertaining audiences while also showing them the changes that others like them have made, the ways that their actions affect the world around them, and the systems that make and prevent sustainability, all without cracking a textbook. Film festivals are also gatherings, perfect to get people talking and thinking together.

Q: What can individuals do to work towards sustainability or to help project change?

First, people should start looking for options to help reduce their environmental and social impacts. They will soon find others interested in these topics as they adopt new habits, and will naturally become examples for making sustainable changes in their communities. Even if all they do at first is to invite a friend to Projecting Change, life is about how we project the change we want to see.

Find out a little bit more about Hemlock…

Trailer For Hemlock Printers The Movie (We Joke)

Issue 04 from Inventory Magazine on Vimeo.

Have you spotted a Projecting Change 2011 flyer or poster around town? Grab a happy snap (picture) and upload it to our facebook wall – bonus points for sneaky/humorous locations! Catch you at the festival.

- Bryce @BryceTarling

Q: Tell me about your work at the wilderness comittee?

The Wilderness Committee (the WC) is a really interesting place to work. The WC just turned 30 which means I am only 3 years older than it is. That whole time the WC has been doing grassroots organizing working in communities to help protect Canadian wilderness and wildlife. In the last decade or so that work has expanded to include more urban environmental issues like toxins and climate change. I am lucky enough to now be responsible for the Healthy Communities campaigns at the WC which includes climate change, toxins and transportation issues. We are trying to apply the lessons learned from on the ground community based campaigns to newer environmental issues like climate change. In practical terms this means working to stop the causes of climate change at their source. Fighting crude oil exports, coal mines and bad highway projects is “where rubber hits the road” in the fight against climate change in BC.

Q: Whats going on with the crude oil tankers on the cost?

In 2007 a decision was made very quietly to allow larger oil tankers pass through the Burrard Inlet for the purpose of exporting oil to Asia. This decision was made with no public consultation or even public awareness. For decades refined fuels have been exported up and down the coast but the export of raw bitumen from the tar sands is a new thing. Its only been the last years that Vancouver has been transformed into a tar sands shipping port. This makes Vancouver a very important choke point in the fight against the expansion of the tar sands. Not only is our coast now at risk of an oil spill but if we are going to play a responsible role in the world in the era of climate change this means phasing out the tar sands not expanding it.

The other significant threat to the BC coast is the proposed enbridge pipeline that would carry 700,000 barrels a day of petroleum products. This proposed pipeline would connect with much bigger tankers than the ones that can pass through the Burrard Inlet and would be over a days travel closer to Asia in each direction.

Q: How can people in Vancouver take action to protect our coast?

We are hosting weekly public meeting in the Wilderness Committee office starting in June on Wednesday nights. There are many ways to get involved doing anything from research to tanker tracking kayaking tours. The number one thing can do is help spread the word. Still most people don’t even know what is going on. Talk to your friends and neighbours. Send our info page to folks you think might be interested. Http://WildernessCommittee.org/tankers. You can join our grassroots distribution team if you would like to help circulate our publications. Contact our office for more information and to volunteer at 604 683 8220.

Q: How do you think an event like the projecting change film festival has the power to invoke and inspire social change?

Film is a powerful medium. We learn from stories and a picture tells athousand words. Also screenings bring people together. New relationships are formed that can make a real difference

One of the Projecting Change Film Festival 2011 films I am most excited for is The Pipe. I’m sure you can guess what it’s about… Join us for the Canadian premier this Saturday http://projectingchange.ca/schedule/the-pipe.

- Rebecca @rebeccaapeel

EPIC Expo was a huge success this past weekend as thousands of people flooded Vancouver’s Trade and Convention Centre to learn more about sustainable development and about what they can do to help project change. I thought I would show up early on Saturday morning, but when I arrived, the space was already flooded with people eager to experience the event. EPIC featured over 300 vendors and several guest speakers who shared their ideas and information concerning sustainable development.

For The Doughnuts! Strombo Mediates Fair Trade Banana VS Poverty Gorilla video featured below.

For me, working closely with Rebecca Peel (our social media director), I was kept busy. Since Rebecca learned that I own my own digital SLR, I become responsible for capturing Fair Trade Vancouver’s main stage presentation, getting shots of interviewees at the Projecting change booth — which happened to include at least one Canadian icon (George Stroumboulopoulos), and making sure to grab images of the events and activities around the Expo — one of which involved an EPIC standoff between The Fair Trade Banana and Poverty Gorilla. While all of this was happening, I also tried to get photos of the faces responsible for making the Fair Trade Pavilion a main attraction. But I guess that’s what happens when you work with Rebecca. From her team of promoters who provided Twitter updates all weekend, to the people involved in putting together some impressive video interviews, Rebecca and the people around her can be a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t until my second day that I managed to sneak away and experience some of the great foods, fashion, and emerging products presented at the show.

Of course, I enjoyed every minute of working with Fair Trade Vancouver and Projecting change. It’s no wonder that both groups have been making waves in Vancouver and across the country. Both organizations are full of bright and energetic volunteers that all have a passion for projecting change. Walking up and down the pavilion, there were costumed characters dressed as Fair Trade Bananas, the infamous Poverty Gorilla, tea kettles, coffee beans, chocolate, and soccer balls. They were such a hit that they were asked to perform a fashion show in the Eco Fashion pavilion. And although they did a great job of looking good, they did an amazing job running events and activities and providing information on Fair Trade and supporting its vendors.

There has been a lot of growing support for Fair Trade in Vancouver and it was great to see so many people engaged in learning more about the different vendors and their products and how they were supporting communities around the world.

Fair Trade Vancouver also presented on the Main stage where a member of Common Ground held interviews with the personalities behind the Fair Trade movement. Members of different organizations that support Fair Trade had a chance to show their faces and share their voices in explaining why Fair Trade is important and how they’ve been successful. To close off the presentation, there was the always-popular Fair Trade Banana-dance performance and then a cake-cutting to celebrate the timeliness of World Fair Trade Day.

World Fair Trade Day Celebration – Cutting the cake with Avery Gottfried Andrea Reimer, Adriane Carr, Mark Abbott (from left to right)


Fair Trade Bananas doing the Banana Dance on the Big Stage at Epic Expo!

Checkout all the amazing Fair Trade vendor displays and freshly handcrafted Fair Trade mascot costumes in our Flickr album!

Tomorrow I’m going to break a window. Whatever the proverbial breaking of the window is, I think a good documentary should do that.

One of the biggest highlights for Projecting Change was the George Stroumboulopoulos interview conducted by Rebecca Peel at the Projecting Change booth. During the interview, Strombo stressed the importance of people getting up to support movements and the impact a festival like Projecting Change could have in creating those movements. It’s one thing for a few dedicated people to go out and create films about change, but it’s up to people and audiences to support these events and the ideas behind them. Catch the full interview Epic Moment With George Stroumboulopoulos.

Fair Trade Vancouver also got some video time with Strombo as he offered his services in officiating an arm-wrestling showdown between the Fair Trade Banana and the Poverty Gorilla. It was an intense event where both contenders were locked in an EPIC struggle where it wasn’t clear who would eventually come out on top. With perseverance however, the Fair Trade Banana was able to topple the Poverty Gorilla in a win that was symbolic for the efforts and the change made by Fair Trade supporters around the globe. Not only did Strombo show his support by stealing the prize of Fair Trade doughnuts, he also promoted Fair Trade and Fair Trade Vancouver in the opening to his main stage presentation.

For the Doughnuts!

While it was great to see a name like George Stroumboulopoulos tout such an event, what’s more impressive is that so many people came out to support and learn about sustainable development. The EPIC Expo was about giving people the opportunity to engage with new ideas and to share their knowledge. Thank you everyone who came out this last weekend to help make EPIC a huge success. This is the support that we need to create change. Be sure to come down to Projecting Change Film Festival to WATCH, ENGAGE and then of course ACT.

-Bryce Tarling – @brycetarling

We’re kicking off the video interviews with a few words from Projecting Change Film Festival co-founder Lindsay Nahmiache (passion project junkie and social change enthusiast). Find out more about the history of Projecting Change as well as innovations for the future….

Our goal is to share innovative ideas and stories from around Vancouver to recognize all the small and big ways Vancouverites are working together to create change. For all the details on when and where we are filming checkout our facebook page

Do you have an innovative idea that needs sharing with Vancouver and the world? Film it in 60 seconds or less and tell us how you are projecting change! Share it on our facebook wall to have the chance to win $1000 cash and free tickets to the festival.

-Rebecca

PS – don’t forget to check us out on twitter for updates @PCFFVancouver