Preventative health as a lifestyle

Zili, a non-profit organization, will hold the Women’s Preventative Health or Zili Conference on May 26, 2018 at the Vancouver Convention Centre to inform women about evidence-based preventative health, provide them with tools to take ownership of their health, and offer a platform to share ideas on how to make the healthcare system more effective.…

The helping HIPPY

It’s not a drop in. The site works very hard with the family to establish a routine because we want the family to establish a routine for learning. Wazi Dlamini-Kapenda, director of Multicultural Programs at the Mothers Matter Centre The HIPPY program works with mothers and their children to help mothers gain the confidence to…

Cohousing – a community of individuals

The concept of cohousing often generates a fair amount of skepticism. Can individuals retain their privacy and a sense of self within a community? Can cohousing accommodate the different needs of a diverse group? Does cohousing truly address issues such as isolation and loneliness? These are some of the issues that will be examined at…

A gala to celebrate Muslim women in B.C.

Voices of Muslim Women (VMW), a non-profit organization, will be holding their annual gala on April 22, 2018 at the Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey to celebrate and inform the community about the accomplishments, talents and fearlessness of local women in Metro Vancouver. Hosts of this year’s gala include UBC Associate Professor and Canada…

SFU is in a new _space

Business of Design students and faculty at Simon Fraser University have carved out a makerspace leading students to make more than just connections in the classroom and hopefully reaching people across the Lower Mainland. The Business of Design program is a very young, year-long program that began in the fall of 2016. According to the…

The herbal connection

A six-month pilot project on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) demonstrates the need for complementary medicine practices in our healthcare system. “The idea is to look at healthcare outside of the current system, so we don’t have to rely on one system to address all our needs,” says Rachel Eni, a registered traditional medicine practitioner and…

Islamic Centre opens doors to a journey into Islam

The youth of Az-Zahraa Islamic Centre in Richmond is organizing an event called “A Journey into Islam,” to showcase Islam through interactive exhibits, guided tours of the centre and ethnic dinner. Sahir Moosvi, a data scientist and the organizer of the open house, aims to demystify Islam by reaching out to other people. “There are…

Contesting culture at Stanley Park

Rena Soutar wants Vancouver’s Indigenous peoples to feel at home in our public spaces. Vancouver has a rich cultural heritage. Minorities, though, don’t always feel welcome in city spaces such as Stanley Park, says Rena Soutar. She is aiming to change that. “There’s no such thing as a culturally neutral space,” explains Soutar, the new…

Filipina Vancouverite wins design contest for Brain Awareness Week

Marianne Claire Bacani designed a prizewinning sticker for Brain Awareness Week 2018. Brain Awareness Week will be celebrated March 12–18. The event director for Neuroethics Canada wasn’t expecting that her design would be a winner. “[I was] so surprised and honoured to be picked as a design hobbyist to be the winner of this contest,”…

Augmented reality games as tools for social interaction

Video games have advanced significantly from the first generation of games, such as Pong and The Odyssey, which are now regarded as arcade classics. Developers have strived to make games more expansive, experiential and realistic. Through this process, developers have increasingly blurred the line between game and reality. In a study recently published online in Personality and Individual Differences,…

“Spark”ing conversations about diversity

Julie Ann Crommett wants to raise awareness about the lack of women and minorities both in front of and behind the camera. Crommett tells a sad story: across the entertainment industry, women and minorities are being under-represented. Yet, she says, there’s hope. “A lot of times, we’re defaulting to stereotypes or to the easiest shortcut…

Workplace meditation saves lives

As a certified organizational change manager and global speaker, Wendy Quan combines workplace mindfulness meditation and change management techniques to build employee resiliency to company change. “Mindfulness meditation is about hitting the pause button on your busy day to be present in the moment through meditation,” says Quan. Research data provided by HealthyFamiliesBC suggest that 21.4 percent…

Recycling abandoned fishnets with sustainability in mind

More than 640,000 tonnes of commercial fishing gear is abandoned, lost or discarded in oceans annually in the world, according to the jointly issued report by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN Environment Program (UNEP). That makes up to 10 per cent of oceanic litter. Abandoned fishing gear has become a global problem.…