Hello Cool World joined an estimated 4,000 people who gathered on the afternoon of Sunday, February 14, for the 19 Annual Women’s Memorial March. The yearly gathering serves as a reminder that violence against women is persistent in our neighborhoods, provinces and country. Led by the families of missing women, we gathered at the Carnegie center and slowly walked through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (or as locals refer to it, the DTES) through to Gastown, watching supporters wave from apartments above.
Hailing from the mountain town of Salt Lake City, Utah, Lizzy enjoys picnics, reading on a lazy Sunday morning and adventurous bike rides. After learning about books at the University of Toronto she now calls Vancouver home. She joined Hello Cool World as a member of the LACE campaign action team, and luckily for us, decided to stick around.
Since Hello Cool World's non-virtual office is in Vancouver we find ourselves in the midst of a pretty big street party! In the coming days, our video team will report from the streets on what is going on in our 'hood. Check out our first video blog-cast from the Opening day "alternative" - the convergence protest the afternoon of February 12, a largely celebratory gathering of thousands of people who wanted their voice heard over the corporate-speak of the official games. Earlier in the day, more peaceful protests disrupted the route of the Olympic Flame relay.
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
SafeVibe is a movement for everyone who wants to keep predators out of the bars and put an end to sexual assault. A campaign by the Vancouver organization WAVAW (Women Against Violence Against Women), the SafeVibe community is made up of all genders and sexual orientations who are committed to keeping the party scene safe. Hello Cool World helped design SafeVibe and are hosting it in our "nestwork" of campaign sites. We continue to do whatever we can to help get the word out, such as this interview with SafeVibe Coordinator Michele Murphy!
HCW: Explain the evolution of the SafeVibe Campaign.
SV: The campaign really began with what women were telling us. We know in 2009 that 37% of our hospital accompaniments here at WAVAW were drug and alcohol facilitated sexual assault. This has been a consistent problem that is on the rise instead of a decline. We were seeing that drink spiking, predatory behavior and harassment in bars are a huge problem in Vancouver and the idea for the campaign started to grow.
Thursday Feb 4 at V Lounge, 1905 Mainland, in Yaletown, Vancouver, Music, drinks, door prizes, no cover and lots of fun!
SafeVibe is a movement for everyone who wants to keep predators out of the bars and put an end to sexual assault. The more people who actively get involved—men, women, youth, everyone!—the closer we will be to making social change a reality. And our cohorts at WAVAW are launching the campaign with a fabulous party!
This time six years ago I would have been sitting through the early screening at Tinseltown as The Corporation had the beginning of it's almost record-breaking run there.
I would have been selling our devil-man tee-shirts for cash on the stairway, and marveling at the table action with our our activist cohorts, such as the Council of Canadians, and the lineups of hardcore fans that just wouldn't quit.
Hailing from the mountain town of Salt Lake City, Utah, Lizzy enjoys picnics, reading on a lazy Sunday morning and adventurous bike rides. After learning about books at the University of Toronto she now calls Vancouver home. She joined Hello Cool World as a member of the LACE campaign action team, and luckily for us, decided to stick around.
Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of Good Company Communications and HelloCoolWorld.com. Trained in renegade advertising & branding through her work with Adbusters in the '90s, Kat's early induction into the possibilities of the web-world was inspired by the term hypertext, which she immediately found comforting. She is dedicated to cause-related communication and to the development and use of tools that promote democratic processes.
