Archived Changemaker Conversations Fall 2022
FROM INSIGHT TO ACTION
WELLBEING + BELONGING
PLACEMAKING AND BELONGING: ACTIVATING DOWNTOWN SPACES THROUGH ARTS WITH BETHEL AFEWORK
Description: Creative activations can turn a once empty, deserted space or street into a hub that invites people from all walks of life to enjoy. The Alcove Centre for the Arts (The Alcove), a non-profit organization aiming to make arts more accessible, sought the opportunity to prototype their organization’s concept by transforming vacant spaces. Since July 2021, The Alcove has activated several under-utilized spaces, which also became an avenue for The Alcove to showcase to Calgarians what a full-time recreational arts space would look like.
The Alcove’s goal is to open a full-time recreational arts facility, like YMCA for the arts! In the meantime, they are optimizing the opportunities presented and collaborating with business improvement areas (BIAs/BRZs), existing organizations such as art galleries, and property management groups to transform under-utilized or vacant spaces in Downtown Calgary.
During this conversation, The Alcove’s Co-founder and Executive Director, Bethel Afework, will share her journey with The Alcove, challenges, and formulas they follow to transform vacant spaces into welcoming community hubs.
FEATURING Bethel Afework Executive Director & Co-founder The Alcove
Bethel Afework is a local artist and entrepreneur. She graduated with a combined degree in Communications & Media and Energy Science from the University of Calgary. The show Bethel founded, Raw Voices (@rawvoicesyyc) in 2016 is an eclectic showcase of spoken word, comedy and music. Bethel is the Co-founder and Executive Director of The Alcove which currently runs prototypes and pop-ups with the goal of opening up a full time facility, like "YMCA for the arts". Bethel is passionate about making Calgary a more vibrant city for all. She is also part of a duo BASK with Siddharth Kataria which blends poetry and music.
WELLBEING + BELONGING
BUILDING CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CHANGEMAKING
Description: Civic infrastructure is defined by Patrick Stephen as “ the places, policies, programs, and practices that enable us to connect with each other, define and address shared concerns, build community, and solve problems.”
For changemaking to happen, it is critical that organizations, communities, and citizens understand the need to build transformative civic infrastructure through activating leadership and building capacities among communities to be changemakers. At ActionDignity, our focus on systems change work requires that we are cognizant of changemakers within our sphere of work and to act with intentionality around building place-based and issue-based programs that have the capacity to bring people together to “define, address shared concerns and solve problems.” In much the same way as physical infrastructure with our communities are intentionally built to support connections and others, we must be intentional about how we build civic infrastructure through supporting community members in their efforts to be changemakers by activating their leadership capacities. Organizations, individuals, and communities can be changemakers and ActionDignity is a changemaking organization that connects with individuals, communities, partners to develop practices, support just policies so that barriers can be removed, and people can be connected with each other.
FEATURING Dr. Francis Boakye, Executive Director Action Dignity and Humaira Falak, Program Coordinator, Action Dignity
Francis is currently the Executive Director for Action Dignity Society in Calgary. Prior to assuming this position, Francis was the Vice President for Strategy and Outreach at the Centre for Newcomers. He has over 15 years of experience in the settlement/service sector. In addition to his work in the sector, Francis is also a passionate instructor and has been engaged in teaching assignments at the Social Work Faculty since 2008. He was the Calgary research coordinator for the national research project on Racism, Violence and Health of Black men from 2005-2008.
Francis has volunteered and continues to serve as a volunteer in many volunteer positions including serving as the former co-chair of the Calgary Anti-Racism Action Committee and co-chair of CLIP’s anti-racism action team. Other volunteer positions have included serving on several boards including Momentum, vice chair of Coalition for Equal Access to Education and a former member of the City of Calgary’s Social Well-being Committee, among others. He is currently a Board member of the National Foundation for Black Communities (FFBC). Francis believes in the power of collaboration in achieving collective impact and has successfully worked with settlement and non-settlement agencies on issues that matter to our community.
I have been living in Calgary since 2013. I am a community development practitioner working full time for Action Dignity and also pursuing my master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University. I am a mother of two beautiful girls. I am a volunteer and public speaker. I have spoken on various platforms on issues impacting racialized communities across the city. I am also the co- chair for Ethno-culturally Diverse working group of Calgary Domestic Violence Collective and a member of Trauma Informed Collective and Calgary Alliance for Common Good. I have led domestic violence and mental health initiatives and currently leading research on topics impacting the wellbeing of racialized communities in collaboration with other agencies and universities. I have also worked as the research assistant with the University of Toronto and as a front-line worker providing social supports to the most isolated and vulnerable seniors in the city.
I have volunteered with agencies like United way, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association, Women centre, Calgary Seniors’ Resource society and many ethno-cultural organizations. I believe in the power of communities and collaboration. I believe that for real and transformative change to occur, we must work collectively towards empowering communities and build their capacity to address shared concerns.
“Alone we can do so little, Together we can do so much” – Helen Keller
WELLBEING + BELONGING
PRODUCTIVE DISCOMFORT: SCARCITY TO ABUNDANCE
Description: Doing the right thing, especially while maneuvering in environments that uphold old systems, can be challenging. Within organizations that were built and have operated under an exclusionary and inequitable status quo, inertia and tension can get in the way of making much-needed changes, and aligning our actions with our values. But if we lean into those feelings of unease and uncertainty, and allow ourselves to question "the way things are done", what new possibilities can arise?
Join us in conversation about how one small theatre organization is trying to restructure and disrupt, and embrace productive discomfort as they attempt to build new, healthy and abundant systems that serve communities better.
FEATURING SWALLOW-A-BICYCLE THEATRE (Kris Vanessa Teo Xin-En, Mpoe Mogale, and Mark Hopkins)
Kris Vanessa Teo Xin-En (张欣恩) is a Chinese-Singaporean settler in Mohkinstsis, on Treaty 7 territory. She practices as a playwright, performer, director, arts administrator and producer. Kris currently works with Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre in multiple capacities.
Much of Kris’ artistic explorations land at the intersections of food, identity and in-betweenness. She deeply values working in kind, care-centered, anti-racist and anti-oppressive ways, and is committed to prioritizing these values as she creates art and lifts up her communities.
Kris is the playwright and performer behind 我的名是张欣恩 (Gimme chance leh), that was developed with support from Chromatic Theatre. You can tune in here: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/canadacouncildigitaloriginals/this-heartfelt-audio-play-explores-the-cultural-whiplash-of-growing-up-between-calgary-and-singapore-1.5806454
Mpoe Mogale (they/them) reigns from Lebowakgomo, South Africa and splits their time between amiskwaciywâskahikan and moh’kínst’sis, in the colonial state of Canada. They hold a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Political Science, and a wealth of expertise in community-based research, facilitation, and arts administration.
Mpoe’s primary artmaking form is dance, with a curiosity in the place of Blackness in spaces that deny it, as explored through several projects including "What (Black) Life Requires" (produced by Mile Zero Dance and Azimuth Theatre). Mpoe’s current artistic imaginations have centered the brilliant, mundane, and joyous aspects that foreground the lives of Black folks.
Mark Hopkins is based in Mohkinstsis - the place colonially known as Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He's the Artistic Director of Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, which generates productive discomfort through art-making, and an Associate with Human Venture Leadership, which seeks to build our collective capacities to reduce ignorance, error, waste, suffering and injustice. He also works as an Audio Describer with Inside Out Theatre's Good Host program. Mark volunteers with the Calgary Foundation, Kawalease Arab Canadian Theatre and the Centre for Newcomers, is a Fellow of the Energy Futures Lab, and founded We Should Know Each Other, a community-bridging initiative.