8 Favianna Speaks About Globalisation and NAFTA 3

Event Description The setting The downtown eastside neighbourhood of a city, struggling with poverty, drug abuse, violence. The story A young woman grows up in this neighbourhood. She and a group of artists start a successful technology and design collective. They launch a business and help establish a non-profit society. They raise the money to buy an old building and rehabilitate it. It houses their company, a bilingual daycare, a cultural centre, and 16 units of low-income housing. Their efforts are bringing social and economic development, music, art, and their community together. It’s an incredible transformation. Where is this? Oakland, California. It’s an inspiring vision for what could, and should, be possible here in Vancouver. On Sunday, March 8, the Sista’hood Celebration presents Art, Resistance, and Community Transformation,” a public art presentation and community dialogue with Favianna Rodriguez, co-founder of Oakland’s Eastside Arts Alliance. This vibrant young woman has just been named one of Utne Reader magazine’s Top 50 Visionaries. Rodriguez is an artist, activist, technologist, and organization builder. Art alone does not transform the world. Mass movements do. It is the unique collaborations between artists, activists, and people that forge true social change, notes Rodriguez. Her work on such issues as immigration, racism, war, and globalization has been featured in Mexico and across America, including at the recent Democratic National Convention …