PRAC October 2014 Meeting

Present: Geoff, Melanie, Ira, Saguna, Omar, Gil

Updates:

•Raise the Rates' Welfare Food Challenge was a great success! Bif Naked joined this year and helped push the media quite a lot. Minister of Social Development mentioned, though did not commit or repeat it!, that now that BC has a balanced budget perhaps it's time to revise Social Assistance rates.

•The government of Sasketchewan announced in their Throne Speech that they commit to a Poverty Reduction Strategy! While this is wonderful news on one side, it means that BC is now dead last in Canada on that front :-(

•The Poverty Reduction and Economic Inclusion Act will be back in the BC Legislature soon. We should continue pushing for people to ask their MLAs and Christy Clark to support it!

•On Oct. 17 -The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty- a few of us helped with the Chew on This! campaign. Even though it was a rainy and cold day, we distributed about 250 postcards in lunch bags, and got lots of great reception from people on the streets.

•On Oct. 18 we had an info table at Surrey's Youth Transforming Society event. There were tons of other organizations there, and students from across Surrey came over looking for interesting organizations to volunteer with. We got about 30 students to join our contact list, and we now have the chance of following up with them and invite them to create a PRAC "chapter" in Surrey! We will keep in touch with them and find out if we can organize a Surrey launch of our #rethinkgiving campaign with them, and find out if it would be possible to have the students Skype in to our meetings.

•Melanie has been helping put together a grant application with the Vancouver Foundation for a youth leadership position, which, if successful, could have a paid position for a youth to help coordinate PRAC activities, gain experience, and serve as a sort of "incubator" space for an easier transition from school and volunteer work to "the real world". We'll keep you posted once we have a response from the Foundation about the application.

Discussion:

Poverty Myth Busters

Everyone liked Omar's latest draft of the poster, which now includes PRAC brand new logo, thanks to Tasleem's initiative, everyone's comments, and Omar's support.

We decided that before launching the poster, we should at least have the next one ready, which is the second side of the same issue of the "get a job" myth. We decided that the next poster should cover the idea of "I already have a job".

We brainstormed a plan to get this second poster done, and came up with the following:

Profile

Since our first poster has an older lady as the "character", we though having a younger working "dad" on the second one could work. A child would also help drive home the point of the effects of poverty on families.

Storyboard

Photo:

It can be a profile picture, split into two, with one side showing the dad wearing one uniform, and the other side wearing a different one (two jobs). Ideally the face will show a strong/impactful emotion.

Alternatively, we could have a more "action-oriented" shot of the dad walking on the street or in the room, half wearing one uniform and putting on the next, with perhaps his child lagging behind or not being properly taken care of.

Video:

1. A young dad gets up early in the morning. The clock shows it's 6 AM. The dad scrambles to get ready, prepare a lunch for his kid (who's still asleep), and put on his fast-food uniform to go work. He kisses his child goodbye and runs out the door.

2. If possible, we will have a bit of a "time-lapse" of footage showing the hectic day. For example, some images of traffic, of public transit, of fast food restaurants, etc.

3. The young dad comes home late. The clock shows it 10 PM (or so). He is now wearing a different uniform (security guard?), and come in trying to not make noise as his kid is asleep already. He shuffles a few things a bit in preparation for the next day, and kisses his child goodnight.

4. Fade in of a slide or two about the campaign and facts.

Technical and logistic details:

•We need an actor! The idea was for a young man (anywhere from 20ish to 40). We also need a child to help us out (not a baby!).

•We need a DSL camera that can also record HD video. Melanie and Saguna will confirm if they have one that we can use. Omar will ask a long-time friend as well.

•We need to find a location that, ideally, we can use for the initial and closing shots (so an apartment or house), but also where we can shoot some other footage, such as walking, getting on the car/driving, getting on the bus, etc. Anyone know of a place we could use?

•We will need some costumes/props: Fast food uniform, security guard uniform, maybe construction worker gear. Anyone got any of these?

#rethinkgiving campaign

•We can re-use the poster from last year easily. We can re-purpose it with a colour version that could be used more sparingly, to have at schools or neighbourhood houses to show where people can drop their "message in a can" or simply to raise awareness.

•We can organize postering parties to put up posters on the streets, but also ask local businesses and community spaces to host the activity there, and engage them at the same time.Please fill out this dudleof what weekends could work for postering runs. Also, please note I set 3 possible times to gauge if the morning, mid-day or evening would be easier for people. If the weekends are NOT a good idea, we can make another poll for weekdays.

•We can also target craft fairs and Christmas events, as well as malls.

•We can use the lesson plan package to encourage schools, businesses, neighbourhood houses, etc. to do the activity, and we can support them. Please look at the attached materials and let us know anything you'd like to edit or change. These were not directly related to #rethinkgiving, so we already notice that particular change needs to be made :-) Once we update these, we'll be able to prepare a more formal kit, with these materials, plus sample tweets and emails, an invitation to join and to re-share, etc.

Partnership with Raise the Rates

A few meetings back we agreed that PRAC wanted to host an event in partnership with Raise the Rates. Bill couldn't make it to our October meeting, but he will come out in November

to chat with PRAC about their work and what we could do together. Some ideas include:

•Hosting a screening of the documentary "Under the Rainbow"

•Launching the #rethinkgiving alongside Raise the Rates' "Poor People's Radio" at CBC's "Food Bank Day" in early December

Misc

After reflecting on our participation at Chew on This!, we remembered the idea of setting up a workshop for "skills sharing", and everyone seemed excited about having one for public speaking and/or canvassing skills.