Managing director Dorothy Morrison calls Victoria’s Imagine Studio Cafe a “cafe classroom.” The cafe offers employment to young adults who may otherwise face barriers due to mental health, addiction, and homelessness. “There’s a lot of talk, but not a lot of action. So we needed to try to make a difference,” Morrison said. She said […]

The Nanaimo Foodshare is using food to help people move forward. On Mondays, in the basement of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, anyone from the community is invited to come share in a free meal, prepared by people in the Foodshare’s employment programs, under the tutelage of professional chef Calven Chow. Called the Monday Lunch together […]

Artificial Intelligence is making its way into more and more areas of our lives, a phenomenon that isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon. While AI isn’t necessarily part of our official publicly insured health care system quite yet, Zoha Khawaja says that day is coming, so we should be proactive about figuring out some […]

When the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic meant closures and reduced service for restaurants, there was a bunch of food that was suddenly without a place to go. Enter the Red Cedar Cafe in Victoria, which was born as a way to put that food to good use. Four years later circumstances have changed, […]

As a teacher librarian, Sara Stone is no stranger to children’s books. But it was what she wasn’t seeing on the shelves, combined with some personal experience, that prompted her to add author to her resume. Stone has written a series of children’s books about sensory processing disorder. Healthlink BC says that children with sensory […]

Marlo Mayers spoke with the media ahead of moving into a new supportive housing building in Nanaimo. Called Corenerstone, The 51 unit building is operated by Connective Nanaimo, formerly known as the Nanaimo Region John Howard Society. Residents at a temporary housing site in Nanaimo called Newcastle Place are being prioritized to move in, which […]

Around a decade ago Zakia Moulaoui Guery was working in a job where she’d get to know the stories of people who’d experienced homelessness. She realized that people in her life outside work were interested in hearing those stories as well, but that they didn’t have any awareness or exposure to them. Moulaoui Guery wanted […]

Singing and songwriting have helped Parksville-Qualicum’s Amarii express things he’s struggled to talk about. Now, they’ve also helped him sign with a new label, Kolossal Records. Amarii says he remembers falling in love with music sitting in front of the television watching Much Music Videos at age 12, but that he only started making music […]

Ten months after being shot in the line of duty and having her leg amputated in 1998, Laurie White was able to return to full unrestricted duties with the RCMP. When she was first asked to share her story, White says she wasn’t sure what people would want to know, but she quickly realized the […]

Gillian Kolla has been looking into the impact the drug toxicity crisis is having on people working to respond to overdose. “While people really, really find doing harm reduction work and doing service provision for people who use drugs to be valuable and rewarding work, it has been emotionally devastating as the drug toxicity crisis […]