Vancouver Foundation provided a list of questions about storytellers’ experience with justice and sustainability. The questions were extremely broad, leading all storytellers to ask, repeatedly, “am I answering the question?” and “am I giving you the information that’s needed?” We worked our way through the questions, each having a slightly different read on the conversation. However, all have shared commonalities.

Heather chose 3 community members who are doing important work. They are:

Calla Evans is a fat, queer, disabled, white settler living on the stolen lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, colonially known as Vancouver, BC.

Calla is an image-maker, visual storyteller, digital problem solver, fat activist and ex-scholar. Much of her practice explores the material conditions of fatness in so-called “Canada” as well as digital fat identity construction and performance. She is a passionate advocate for a more fat-inclusive outdoors and works with industry stakeholders to improve access, safety, and representation for fat people in the outdoors. Calla currently also works as a digital storytelling facilitator at Re•Vision: The Centre for Art & Social Justice. She cultivates as much time as possible in the woods with her pup, Ellie.

Carmel Tanaka (she/her) is a queer, neurodivergent, ‘Jewpanese’ (Jewish and Japanese Canadian) woman of colour from the west coast on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. She is a community engagement professional and  consultant, who knows what it takes. She has founded a number of leadership initiatives:

JQT Vancouver
Jewpanese Project
Cross Cultural Walking Tours
Genocide Prevention BC

Carmel is a creator of written and video media content, as well as a dynamic speaker and panelist regular. She holds a Masters in Public Health, specializing in Emergency & Disaster Management from Tel Aviv University, and a Bachelor of Arts, specializing in Asian Language & Culture from the University of British Columbia.

The 3rd participant chose to be anonymous. We talked about a variety of issues. They are a long time 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate who is disabled. They spoke about how inequitable the system of scarcity is for disabled people. They and others have to rely on fundraising campaigns to cover necessary disability supports like wheelchairs and walkers. Not only should the government be covering the needs of disabled people (who can’t afford to on their own) but fundraising relies on social capital. This is unfair, especially for people with disabilities who are isolated because they don’t have access to the mobility devices that would enable their being out and involved in community.

LET’S’ Executive Director taught 2 workshops for the Vancouver Foundation May. The workshops were very well received, which led to an invitation for Heather to join Vancouver Foundation’s latest initiative, the Just and Sustainable Futures Fund, as a Community Advisor. The fund is a grant stream that directly lives in the Grants and Community Initiative department’s newly developed North Star, “[to] invest in the self-determination of people most impacted by systems of oppression, to support the conditions for a just and sustainable future to emerge for all.”

In our invitation, our role in the initiative was explained: “As part of this initiative, you will collaborate with a diverse group of passionate individuals who are all driven by the same goal: to empower and uplift those most affected by systems of oppression. This is not just a project; it’s an opportunity to be at the forefront of creating impactful, long-lasting change within our community.

Your role will involve story-gathering and systems mapping through stories, harnessing your unique skills in deep listening, and innovative thinking to help shape a grant stream that truly reflects the needs and aspirations of our community members across British Columbia.”

Heather was asked to help to shape the design and future of this granting stream, by contributing collaborative energy towards gathering and mapping stories that would be used to create the grant prototype. They were asked to participate in deep listening, storytelling & sharing by individual community members.

(A group of diverse community members.)

The Polygon Gallery engaged LET’S in providing on-site feedback for the gallery’s “Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia” exhibition. The Polygon was interested in exploring how to make the exhibition more low sensory friendly for visitors on their low sensory night. This was an interesting consultation opportunity, due to the exhibition’s overwhelming visual, sonic, and physical intensity, and its densely structured maze-like multimedia environment, including 52 monitors.

LET’S did a walkthrough with gallery staff. LET’S’ staff person has sensory issues and was quite overwhelmed by the exhibition, even as they admired the whole display. We were able to make suggestions on how to reduce the intensity of the sensory overload. It was obvious that staff had already given it a lot of thought. They had great suggestions.

It was  a challenge to reduce the sensory experience because the overwhelm was a purposeful part of the exhibition. We were conscious of not reducing so much that the impact of the display was not felt. Balancing accessibility with the artists’ evocative exhibition was a thought-provoking exercise. We were very happy with the balance that we struck. We heard the event went extremely well. The gallery received positive feedback from neurodivergent folks and visitors, who were unaware it was a reduced sensory night, who benefited from the reduction in sensory stimuli.

The Polygon Gallery engaged Heather McCain in providing on-site feedback on the gallery’s “Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia” exhibition. The Polygon was interested in exploring how to make the exhibition more low sensory friendly for visitors on their low sensory night. This was an interesting consultation opportunity, due to the exhibition’s overwhelming visual, sonic, and physical intensity, and its densely structured maze-like multimedia environment.

The low sensory event was a success. Visitors who require low sensory were glad to find staff prepared and aware of the various ways low sensory spaces can be supported. There was an adjacent room set up as a low sensory space with stim toys, colouring, and quiet. The Pussy Riot exhibition is purposely sensorily overwhelming and Polygon Gallery worked to lower that without affecting the impact of the exhibit. Some visitors also shared that they didn’t think they would be able to last long and instead were able to enjoy the exhibit as much as they wanted. The staff said it was great to hear such immediate, positive feedback.

LET’S started our relationship with The Polygon Gallery in 2021, providing Disability Awareness and Gender & Sexuality workshops and an accessibility audit. We were pleased to see them make immediate improvements, based on our recommendations. The Polygon Gallery also applied for, and received, funding to increase accessibility. Since that time, we have been in regular contact as they continue to learn about accessibility and the needs of the disability and neurodivergent communities. We look forward to our continued relationship.

LET’S was contacted by the Director of Projects at SFU (Simon Fraser University). They are supporting the SFU Accessibility Project, which was established in response to the enactment of the BC Accessibility Act. They reached out to LET’S as a potential consultant who could support their office with drafting an Accessibility Plan.

LET’S’ name was shared with them by a member of their Accessibility Committee and a colleague who had spoken very highly of one of our workshops. We look forward to proceeding on this project.

United Way’s Period Promise campaign increases access to free menstrual products in communities so that everyone who menstruates can go to work, get to school, access services, and stay connected to their community.

LET’S was contacted by the Capacity Building Specialist of the campaign. They are speaking with a variety of organizations to make sure their work continually meets community needs. After conversing with a LET’S staff member, the campaign supplied LET’S with free reusable and disposable menstrual products to give out at our low sensory spaces. They are hoping to get some useful information on participants’ experiences using reusable menstrual products, with the goal that this data will inform future policy changes that address period poverty in BC, and ultimately help to better serve our communities.

(Illustrations of menstrual products, including calendar, pads, tampons, menstrual cup, underwear, and the pill.)

As more public policy gets written around access to menstrual products, the campaign hopes to better understand what impact reusable products can have as part of building long-term solutions. To this end, they are building a research concept in partnership with community organizations who offer support to those demographics that disproportionately experience period poverty in BC: people living with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and families making less than $40,000 a year.

They are seeking potential partners to work with. LET’S is planning an event with them for the Spring. More information to come.

Over the 18 years of CAN’s (now LET’S) existence, we have had many requests for services. We were excited to receive a new type of request. We were emailed: “I am an author / illustrator living on Vancouver Island and I am in the process of writing a grant application. For a future project I would like to hear from people in the disability community to help inform the project, and I would like to work with a disability consultant to help me navigate this as well as the content of the story and art.”

As an organization with many book lovers (definitely including our founderExecutive Director), CAN/LET’S of course said yes. We are looking forward to this new project.
We will announce the author and book in a future newsletter.

Illustration of an open childrens' book with a castle, hills, and waterways. Surrounding the book are children reading.
Illustration of an open childrens' book with a castle, hills, and waterways. Surrounding the book are children reading.

CAN/LETS participated in the consultation to gather perspectives from patients and community members on the priority health concerns in British Columbia and how future physicians should be trained to meet these needs.

The purpose of the project was to co-create with patients and the public a set of evidence-based guiding principles, models and processes for the authentic, responsive, ongoing and sustainable engagement of patients and the public in the mission, goals, curriculum and delivery of medical education. The goal is to make medical education more responsive to the needs of society.

Guiding Principles for Patient/Public Engagement

  • Accountability: Includes transparency, feedback, and shared outcomes.
  • Inclusion: People with diverse perspectives are sought and invited to participate.
  • Engagement processes are easily accessible.
  • Reciprocity: Relationships are mutually beneficial and based on trust and mutual respect.
  • Partnership/Shared Decision-Making: University and community partners have equal voices and shared responsibility.
  • Co-Production: University and community partners work together to co-develop and co-design engagement processes and activities.
  • 2-Way Communication: Communication is open and honest, with clear expectations on both sides.
  • Support: Community partners receive the support and information they need to participate fully.
  • Different Levels of Engagement: There are diverse opportunities for the community to engage in health professional education (from classroom to committee).

3 different formats (diagram, summary, and descriptive) of the guiding principles are available for download through the buttons here. You can also watch a video of patient/public member’s perspectives on the guiding principles here.

EnGAGE stands for Ethical partnerships with transGender And Gender diverse communities for conducting pharmacoEpidemiologic research.

This project is aimed at ethically engaging transgender and gender-diverse populations in pharmacoepidemiology research.

It is being conducted by Dr. Mary De Vera’s lab at UBC and in collaboration with Dr. Lori Brotto and the Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI).

CAN/LET’S was identified as a community member/representative with expertise working with and serving transgender communities. CAN/LET’S was invited to participate in a discussion with members of the EnGAGE team and other participants who share our experience.

We spoke with researchers about how they can ethically engage members of the transgender community as collaborators and co-investigators in research. Our insight and expertise will be used to inform best practices amongst clinicians and researchers on fostering ethical and sustainable collaborations with transgender communities.

Shadowed people in conversation, coloured by black, blue, green, yellow, and red.
Shadowed people in conversation, coloured by black, blue, green, yellow, and red.
4 medical students taking an examination.
4 medical students taking an examination.

CAN/LET’S was part of a focus group, hosted by the Medical Council of Canada (MCC), regarding their development of a new Examination Objective. They were seeking input from patients and health care professionals.

They stated: “Describing the attributes expected of medical graduates entering supervised practice in Canada, the MCC Objectives are the foundation for examination development. They may also be used by medical assessment organizations, medical educators and candidates preparing for the MCC examinations.

The development of the new objectives stems from the desire to continue to assess emerging social and environmental realities, and to address current gaps in medical education, regulation and practice in Canada.

The anticipated new objective will be on inclusive health care. [They sought] participants for a focus group who are:

  • patients who have experienced health disparities based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability or other factors, or
  • health care professionals who work with and advocate for patients experiencing health inequities.

During the focus group, CAN/LET’S’ representative spoke of the need to have more equitable health care that recognizes the effect of stigma, discrimination, bias, and oppression.

We shared how our members’ intersecting identities affected their access to health care. We gave examples of people with disabilities experiencing barriers to medical care, leading some to say that they have medical PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).

We also commented on the need for culturally safe and respectful care for Indigenous people, including having the option to incorporate their traditional practices.

CAN/LET’S was glad to have the opportunity to provide the perspectives and experiences of our members for this important discussion. We were told that our “insight has been
invaluable in developing this objective”. Check out their website for more details.