The focus of the DTES Neighbourhood House’s Building Inclusive and Welcoming Neighbourhoods [BWIN] work is on the founding communities of the DTES: Indigenous, Chinese, Japanese and Low-income. By expanded Outreach and meaningful events, we invite the founding communities to reaffirm community and cultural assets, revisit the burdens of prejudice and re-evaluate the violent outcomes of stigma and racism. In this work we court DTES residents long here but living in isolation, newcomers to the DTES and those newly arrived from distant shores.
In the coming months, our Community Developer will bring the DTES NH to tenants of the Woodward’s Redevelopment, welcoming the newcomer populations of all incomes, including the small number of longtime DTES community residents. At Woodward’s we propose to act as the host community organization and secure the participation of sister organizations across the DTES and beyond. We aspire to showcase the history of DTES founding communities, divulged through films, guests storytellers, roundtables and a variety of other programming in order to facilitate the integration of newcomers with long time DTES residents, of present with past and debate any conflicting community visions. This community development work is critically important if Woodward’s is to avoid becoming an isolated enclave within the DTES.
The Annual Women’s Memorial March [WMM], is held every February 14th. Among many other sister organizations, we participate in honouring DTES women who are missing or have been murdered. In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and nationally, Indigenous women are the majority of the missing and murdered.
The DTES NH Community Developer facilitates community conversations on women’s safety, inviting collective strategies for reducing vulnerability and dismantling the race, class and occupational stigmas which attract predators.
HomeGround is annually produced by the DTES NH and Carnegie Community Centre. A 3 day event in 2009, in February 2010 it was a month long series of events scheduled in those weeks when the community was absorbing the impacts of the Olympic Games. HomeGround 2011 consists of a week of activities culminating in a 3 day tented event at Oppenheimer, intended to offer additional mid winter support to homeless and underhoused DTES residents. HomeGround is exclusively for homeless and underhoused DTES residents.
