Group opposes Salvation Army lunch fee and is asking questions about shelters
A Nanaimo-based advocacy group, the Creative Awareness Collective, is challenging a recent fee attached to the lunches served at The Salvation Army’s New Hope Centre. The Pennies from Heaven campaign aims to stop the fee. The group is also speaking up about practices at Nanaimo’s emergency shelters.
We speak with Wallace Malay and Mary Ellen Bruce of the Creative Awareness Collective and with Rob Anderson from The Salvation Army. (more…)
British Columbia had the highest child poverty rate in Canada for the sixth year in a row in 2007, according to a child poverty report card released this week. The provincial report, released along with a national study, marks the 20th anniversary of the Canadian parliament’s unanimous vote to end child poverty by the year 2000.
On our program this week, we focus on three initiatives that have persevered and emerged with new locations, services, and/or facilities—and a shared “new lease on life”. Join us for our discussion with leaders from three Nanaimo people-focused organizations… 
An ordained minister with over 27 years of service in the U.S. United Methodist Church shared with his congregation August 30th that he was born a girl and became a transgendered man over thirty years ago. Rev. David Weekley’s story has thrust him into the public eye and earned him a national award for his work and example in the United Methodist Reconciling Ministries. 
Several mothers of children with autism have become activists—and are challenging the B.C. Liberal government’s recent decision to reallocate funding from an early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) program. EIBI provides intensive early interventions that 
Canada’s federal correctional investigator, Howard Sapers, has released a report detailing the Correctional Service of Canada’s ongoing dealings with mentally ill prisoners.