Updates

Between October 30th to November 10th this year, the 21st annual Heart of the City festival animated the Downtown Eastside with over a hundred community-oriented events under the theme Threads of Connection.

The release of States of Injury — with Wendy Brown marks Below the Radar’s 250th episode—a major milestone since the podcast’s inception in 2018.

On June 22, the cast and crew of Project Limelight’s production of East Side Story were greeted with applause as a full house welcomed the young performers back to the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre stage.

Our Below the Radar podcast mini-series See How We Run! looked at local arts collectives and organizations, highlighting conversations about creation, spacemaking, accessibility, and self-determination within the framework of Vancouver’s cityscape.

Since September 2022, we’ve held 42 events and workshops, released 33 episodes, and engaged more than 25,000 podcast listeners. During that time, working diligently behind the scenes—editing podcast audio, and supporting communications and events programming—was our interim Programs Assistant Samantha Walters, who we are pleased to announce has now moved into a continuing role in the office.

On June 29, 2023, 200 people turned out for the world premiere screening of Smokey Devil: Underworld Street Reporter, a feature length documentary by Nathaniel Canuel, co-hosted by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement.

On our latest spring season of the podcast, we had the chance to sit down with five SCA artist-scholars for some exciting discussions on their artistic practices and latest research. Whether you're looking to hear more about arts education and the local arts ecology, or just seeking some artistic inspiration, we hope you join us in diving back into these episodes.

Released every spring, Voices of the Street (VOTS) is a compendium of writing by Megaphone community members, a space for exploration of creative expression through language.

Our spring season of Below the Radar has consisted of seventeen conversations with community builders, artists, and academics about dynamic research initiatives, new projects, and engaging stories.

As we approach our 5th year of Below the Radar, we’re pleased to share that our podcast has surpassed 100,000 listens!

We are delighted to welcome Julia Aoki as Program Manager at SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement!

SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement was honoured to support four events at the Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival, featuring activists, performance artists, and a comic journalist, telling their stories and illuminating directions for positive change.

A podcast that maps accessible, sustainable and equitable transportation in urban spaces.

SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement (SFU VOCE) and Megaphone are delighted to present the completed Voices of the Street podcast — a Below the Radar original series created by Megaphone storytellers. Inspired by writings and themes from the 2021 Voices of the Street literary anthology, this series was thoughtfully curated and hosted by Megaphone Speakers Bureau participants: Jules Chapman, Angel Gates, Nicolas Leech-Crier and Yvonne Mark.

It’s our pleasure to introduce an important member of our team who is hard at work behind the scenes of Below the Radar, Kathy Feng.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only been devastating to our communities, it has laid bare so many of the inequities that have been ongoing within our institutions and communities.

As this complicated and tumultuous year comes to a close, there is much to reflect upon. While our public programming has been limited to the virtual world for the time being, we look forward to welcoming our communities back to in-person programming in Fall 2021.

Our longtime community partner Karen Jamieson Dance has returned with the Carnegie Dance Troupe to present their work in progress performance Recollect. This year’s collaborative performance was lead by Julie Lebel, a choreographer with a wide breadth of experience with community engaged dance.

Black Youth Organizers on Mutual Aid and Community Responses to COVID-19

We are excited to welcome our new co-op student Jackie Obungah to the SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement team!

The beginning of July 2020 marks the end of Rachel Wong’s time in our Office. Rachel began as a Communication co-op student 13 months ago and eventually became a permanent employee.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed most aspects of life. Here at SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, we continue to explore some of these changes.

In the wake of COVID-19, we all need to adapt and learn new ways of doing things. This has been a particularly challenging time for a number of community organizations whose focus is to help those in need. Whether you are looking for some support during this time or want to find ways to help organizations with their work, here are some ways to help.

Our office is excited to partner with Yarrow Intergenerational Society for Justice on the launch of Speak My Language, a project that features 5 radio documentaries created by teams of youth and Chinese seniors.

On September 25, 2019, we had the opportunity to co-host “Decolonizing the City: The Future of Indigenous Planning in Vancouver” with the Planning Institute of BC South Coast Chapter and Vancouver City Planning Commission. This was a presentation and panel discussion that proved to be a very important topic for our community, and we are thrilled at the support and interest for this event.

It’s that time of year again! Back for their 16th year, Heart of the City Festival will fill the Downtown Eastside with song, drama, visual art, film, workshops, and so much more. With over 100 events at over 40 venues throughout the Downtown Eastside, the 12 days between Wednesday, October 30 and Sunday, November 10 are sure to inspire and delight you. Many of these events are free or by suggested donation.

SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement partnered with Hives for Humanity to support the development of Research 101, a community-based project that produced resources for ethical research in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), including a resource card on informed consent and a manifesto for ethical research.

For the fifth consecutive year, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement hosted the Jim Green Memorial Lecture in honour of Jim Green (May 25, 1943 – February 28, 2012), who was a city councillor, a community activist, and a formidable advocate for — and developer of — social housing in the Downtown Eastside.

Join us as we commemorate 22 years of rebuilding and progress since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. On June 28, 2016, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, Embrace Rwanda, and Building Bridges with Rwanda present Remembering Rwanda: 22 Years Later.

On the first four Wednesdays of March, SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement, SFU’s Indigenous Research Institute, and SFU’s Office for Aboriginal Peoples co-presented a speaker series on Aboriginal issues, featuring engaging lectures and panel discussions. The entire series was filmed and can be accessed through our online video gallery.