Two more nights of Projecting Change to GO! Which movies have you seen so far?

Apart of our Projecting Change Interview Series, we had the chance to speak with restauranteur and the unofficial Mayor of Gastown, Mark Brand.

Mark was so gracious to be one of our sponsors for PCFF’s closing night gala, which will be held at Portside Pub, following the screening of Girl Rising.

Katie Schaeffers Schaeffers speaks to Mark about what it means to be a social entreprenuer and finds out what makes him curious.

Independent filmmaker Chris Farina, of World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements and I had the great good fortune of being a kick-off speaker for the Project Change Film Festival in Vancouver in 2012.

What took us both by surprise was the breadth and depth of the community, business, arts and social networks and resources flowing seamlessly together. Throughout the festival unusual, seemingly contrarian, and muscularly innovative partnerships and synergies kept emerging, swinging into action, or branching off into yet another avenue of creative reinvention of old forms and ideas, all for a new way forward. What made me so curious was how so many apparent Bodhisattvas and saints, all working for the common good, could be gathered all in one place! How could so many disparate individuals and organizations simply decide to stage, cause, and ultimately do so much good?? I’ll say this, we both can’t wait to get back to Vancouver to see what long-term effects, what real and substantial good Projecting Change brings about….for us all.

~John Hunter, Musician, teacher, filmmaker, game designer, and inventor of World Peace Games

Check out his TEDtalk, Teaching with the World Peace Game

Our Executive Director, Katie Schaeffers, speaks to Madeleine about how she started LunaPads and how her brand aims to empower women from all over the world. One of their initiative started in 2000 called Pads4Girls, committed to supporting the education (and therefore liberation) of girls. LunaPads does amazing things and definitely a change-maker in the community.

We are happy to partner with LunaPads for the screening of Girl Rising which is the centrepiece of 10×10, a global campaign to educate and empower girls.

Click below and listen to this inspiring conversation with Madeleine Shaw:

Interested in organizations that empower change? Look no further than imagine1day, a dynamic non-profit organization of change makers supporting quality education in Ethiopia. imagine1day has a goal to provide all Ethiopians with access to quality education funded free of foreign aid by 2030. How do they plan on achieving this goal? They’ve designed an innovative fundraising movement called Creatribution (hard to say, easy to do). It encourages the global community to participate in social entrepreneurism by turning their passions and talents into a contribution. Through Creatribution, people are elevating their local communities while raising awareness and funds for education projects in Ethiopia.

Projecting Change is excited to have imagine1day as a co-promotional partner for this year’s festival. We speak with change maker Michelle Lazar to discuss more about the organization and her thoughts on social entrepreneurism and fundraising.

Our amazingly talented Executive Director and Curator, Katie Schaeffers, is featured in today’s The Huffington Post Canada. She talks on how she got the best job in the world, PLUS read her advice to people who long to live the Life Out Loud!

READ HERE: http://ow.ly/jzNrs

This episode of Projecting Change Interview Series, we speak with Annalea Krebs, a social entrepreneur and Founder of ethicalDeal.

At a time where daily deal sites like Groupon are being criticized for their ‘fad-like’ business model, Kreb is staying strong and consistently GREEN!  The mission of her business is to make greener choices more accessible to the mainstream.

Kreb has come a long way from when she started EthicalDeal in 2010, with $75,000 from various grants. That’s why we are chatting with this smart change-maker:

For this episode of Projecting Change Interview Series, we chat with Alex Mazerolle, Founder of Girlvana.

Alex is definitely a change-maker and extremely loved and admired in her community. She founded a powerful organization, Girlvana, with the intention to empower teen girls and young women with the tools for higher living and learning. Alex combines her passion for yoga and meditation with the love for fashion and healthy living while providing a space to empower young women. Her presence articulates the importance of self-love, awareness, and GIRL POWER!

As Alex holds a lot of love, charm, and energy, we are extremely excited to announce that she’ll be facilitating the workshop following the screening of Bully, as apart of Youth Day. She will be alongside Jian Pablico VARS/TY INITIATIVE to present an empowerment workshop.

Play soccer and produce energy. Sounds like a dream, right? Well, the team at Uncharted Play turned this concept into a reality. They created the SOCCKET ball (which actually does looks like a soccer ball) generates energy as you play the sport

We are honored to partner with Uncharted Play for the opening night of Projecting Change Film Festival on April 24. In case you were wondering how the SOCCKET works, it’s a portable generator. The internal mechanism takes the energy from rolling and converts plus stores it as electrical energy. After the game is finished, the product comes with a single-bulb LED lamp that can be plugged into the ball to provide light for hours. That’s genius.

For the love of soccer and SOCCKET, we’ll be screening the documentary film Kicking It, which is about the Homeless World Cup.

The film examines six homeless men from around the world who love to play soccer. These individuals were from Ireland, Spain, Kenya, Russia, Iraq, and the United States, and the film examines their daily struggles and challenges, as well looks at how this sport has changed them for the better and provided hope.

Homeless World Cup is an annual international football competition for the homeless, and was founded in 2003 in Austria. This World Cup is composed of 48 teams of 500 homeless individuals gathered to compete. Kicking It was filmed in 2006, when the tournament was hosted in Cape Town, South Africa. Actor Colin Farrell narrated the film and it was released in 2008.

While David Beckham might not be making an appearance at the festival, we’ll have Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson in attendance, as he’s a huge supporter of the Street Soccer League.

For more info about Uncharted Play check out www.soccket.com.

Click here to view our full film + speaker schedule.

Today is the 20th anniversary of World Water Day. Many of us forget how lucky we are to have easy access to water for drinking, washing dishes and laundry, taking a dip into the pool, or just enjoying a long hot shower.

We must truly appreciate the gifts that nature has provided us but also be aware of how you can take action to preserve our most valuable resource. In addition, World Water Day brings the awareness that 800 million people are stilling without access to clean water.

How can you take part?

Follow #WorldWaterDay on your favorite social media channel and join in on the conversation.

Ask yourself, how can you make subtle changes in your household to save from wasting water?

Check out this great blog post on Water – Use it Wisely, to find out 100 ways to conserve. There are so many ways to save, though this list is a good place to start, please let us if you other great ideas.

WaterAid.org created a campaign called #20Days Countdown to show that in investment in water and sanitation can be the beginning of a better world. They also produced this beautiful video for World Water Day.

Watch here – ‘Water is just the beginning’

Stay tuned on how charity:water builds an art installation in Time Square between 2pm – 7pm EST. For more details, click here.

Happy World Water Day!