Hope in Shadows

The quote in the first photo reads: "Life is not a dagger stained with the blood of hatred. It is a branch filled with the blossoms of love and compassion. Life itself is restless for peace in the world. Let its noble dream materialize." The word "hope" is a common theme in the worlds of the oppressed. Hope is often the thing that keeps people going when their life is in peril. Hope is sometimes the only thing people have.

Hope in Shadows is a great initiative born from the community of the Downtown Eastside (DTES). I know that many of you didn't grow up in the lower mainland and perhaps have never been to the DTES. It is a place of paradox, it is full of love and hope but also poverty and despair. It is a community and home for those without a home, for those that have been rejected from all other communities and homes. For some it is a place they go because they are lost. The stigma attached to the DTES is that of hopelessness, drug-addicts, prostitutes and filth. I've heard several times, "I just don't understand why those people can't just get it together, it's their own fault they are like that." That isn't true at all. Most of the people that live in the community of the DTES have experienced complex trauma in their lives and/or suffer from a severe mental or physical disease. They haven't had the luxury of having support, health care or a family to take care of them. The easiest and most available way for people to deal with their pain is through drugs. It is a vicious cycle that is extremely hard to break. That said, there is a strong community in the DTES where they support each other and it is a place full of HOPE. I could talk about this for hours, so I will end it there.

The Hope in Shadows project is amazing. It provides people of the DTES an opportunity to celebrate their community and an avenue to rehabilitate themselves through meaningful employment by selling the calendars.

I thought it would be a great idea to pair students up, give them a disposable camera and get them to take pictures of their school community or their home community. I would then, collect the cameras, get the pictures printed or in digital format, choose the "winners" - the top 12 photos and get the students to design a calendar with these photos. You can fill in the blanks of how this would happen. There would have to be strict expectations and guidelines, that's for sure!