Word of mouth is spreading about NewWest.tv as we are providing excellent background information on many of the issues that are confronting the people of New West. Our analytics on social media have been rising too.
One of the most popular programs that NewWest.tv produced is “Granny Power”, released in January 2021, about a New Westminster non-profit organization that is one of the most successful in BC's Lower Mainland. It's called Royal City GoGos, and consists of a group of “grannies” who have grown from 10 to 65 members in 10 years. Through their outstanding dedication, creative genius and hard work, they have raised a half a million dollars for grandmothers in Africa looking after children with Aids. Most often, the Gogos (an African word for grandmother) are looking after their grandchildren, having had to bury their own children. Some of these grannies take on the care of neighbours' children too.
The money that the Royal City Gogos raise goes to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which has several projects in Africa, including the grandmother initiative. The money goes to help these grandmothers develop livelihoods to pay for raising these children and sending them to school. During the year of the pandemic, some of those funds have gone to providing health care to these families too.
Janine Reid is the founder and creative energy behind this group, and she is indefatigable. Even during the dreadful COVID year of 2020 the group managed to provide considerable funds. To do this, they moved their Christmas Craft Fair to the outdoors in July. It was as well attended as their usual November event and they sold high quality crafts of every type – for the garden, the kitchen, for pets, for children, accessories for women and more - all made by the women of the group.
Among the other things that they organized in 2020 was an on-line cocktail party where participants learned to make cocktails; the ingredients were sent to them in a day in advance. They had a pledge walk, a pledge cycle ride, and a huge online bake sale for Christmas which sold out in 24 hours.
A standout event was their city-wide scavenger hunt just before Halloween. Teams dressed up in costume and raced around the city to find riddle locations. At each locale, they had to prove by photo that they had found the place and had done the crazy activity required of them at that location – among them: eating a cookie from your forehead, doing a crazy dance, mimicing the famous Wait for Daddy statue in downtown Hyack Square.
NewWest.tv followed most of these activities over the course of 2020. We received many personal emails, complimenting us on this documentary. It comes up in conversation often when the principals are in the community. Janine Reid, herself, was honoured with a leadership award by the Stephen Lewis Foundation, just last month. My bet is that our documentary brought to their attention her incredible work, or at least, was part of the decision-making.
By: Susan Millar
-30-
Ajouter un commentaire
A propos l’IJL
LJI Impact is the section of commediaportal.ca where the journalists and their organizations participating in CACTUS' Local Journalism Initiative can share their greatest successes.
Through the written stories, photos and videos you see in the LJI Impact section, you'll be able to read first hand accounts about how the presence of a community journalist is making a difference in communities across Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative and the Community Media Portal.
The Community Media Portal is a gateway to the audio-visual media created by community media centres across Canada. These include traditional community TV and radio stations, as well as online and new media production centres.
Community media are not-for-profit production hubs owned and operated by the communities they serve, established both to provide local content and reflection for their communities, as well as media training and access for ordinary citizens to the latest tools of media production, whether traditional TV and radio, social and online media, virtual reality, augmented reality or video games.
The Community Media Portal has been funded by the Local Journalism Initiative (the LJI) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) in association with the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (the Fédération). Under the LJI, over 100 journalists have been placed in underserved communities and asked to produce civic content that underpins Canadian democratic life.
