Illustrating the news around me // Ilustrando las noticias de mi mundo
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Growing Older
THE WORLD IS GETTING OLDER. Globally, longevity is increasing markedly, and birth rates are falling. This demographic reality is often portrayed in calamitous terms. Economists, politicians, policymakers, and pundits alike speak of the aging population overwhelming health systems, damaging the labour market, destroying economies. But we rarely hear from older people themselves about the challenges (and joys) of aging, or about their priorities.
In this series of stories from the Global Reporting Program, we hear elders speak of their struggles making ends meet, finding affordable housing, and their worries about being a burden on their families, and despairing about climate change.
FULL SERIES, HERE.
Shooting Star: The Career and Life of Terry Felix
BY MID-1983, Terry Felix was a star on the rise. The 23 year-old from the Sts’ailes First Nation in B.C.’s Fraser Valley had already become the first indigenous soccer player to play for the Canadian National Team and the Vancouver Whitecaps, and was quickly becoming a household name for soccer fans across Western Canada.
Then, from one day to the next, he fell off the radar.
FULL STORY HERE.
Avalanche on Mt. Everest
ON APRIL 18, 2014, 16 Nepalese Sherpas died after an avalanche hit the Khumbu Icefall on Mt. Everest. The event halted climbing expeditions for the season, as Sherpas went on strike to protest what they saw as meager compensations for the victims’ families by the Nepalese government.
The Drama of Aging Out
ON THE DAY OF THEIR 19TH BIRTHDAY, children in B.C.’s foster care system officially age out of care. For many, that means leaving their homes and having to fend for a life on their own.
To make this transition easier, an organization in Vancouver is helping Aboriginal youth – who make up 52% of children in care in B.C. – reconnect with their Indigenous identity.
It’s a connection that Audrey Siegl, a former city council candidate in Vancouver and a citizen of the Musqueam First Nation, would have benefited from 20 years ago, when she transitioned out of care.
“That connection to our culture is invaluable, because that’s where we find our grounding, our power; that’s where we find our guidance.”
Nisga’a Protests in Vancouver
ON NOV. 11, 2014, citizens of the Nisga’a nation gathered outside the Vancouver Art Gallery to protest against their government’s decision to build a LNG pipeline across sacred land in the Nass Valley. Keane Tait, a keeper of Nisga’a culture in Vancouver, was among the protesters.
My Park, My Home
GARY HUMCHITT WAS ONE OF THE FIVE HOMELESS PEOPLE arrested for refusing to vacate Oppenheimer Park’s Tent City in October 2014.
“I stood my ground because I know it’s not their land to kick me out of,” said Gary, who’s a citizen of the Kwakiutl and Nuxalk First Nation. He has called Oppenheimer Park his home for years, and argues that the park sits on unceded First Nations land.
According to the 2014 homeless count, indigenous people comprise 23 per cent of Vancouver’s 1,803 homeless, despite being only two per cent of the city’s population.
Looking into the future
Family portrait, Behchoko, Tlicho Territory, NWT, Canada
ON AUG. 4, 2015, hundreds of Tłı̨chǫ citizens from Gamèti, Wekweèti, and Whati traveled to Behchokǫ̀, in Canada’s Northwest Territories, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Tłı̨chǫ Agreement.
People made their way by land and water to celebrate the momentous occasion when the nation officially regained self-government rights over land and resources within 39,000 square kilometres of their traditional territory.
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Peter Mothe 