Social Action Saving lives...

Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives

With authors Susan Boyd, Donald MacPherson & Bud Osborn



Thursday, March 4, 2010

7:00 pm

Solstice Café, 529 Pandora Avenue, Victoria, Lekwungen Territories, BC



Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives tells a story about community activism in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES) that culminated in a social justice movement to open the first official safe injection site in North America. This story is unique: it is told from the point of view of drug users — those most affected by drug policy, political decisions and policing. It provides a montage of poetry, photos, early Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) meetings, journal entries from the Back Alley, the “unofficial” safe injection site, and excerpts from significant health and media reports. The harms of prohibition, and resistance, hope, kindness, awakening and collective action are chronicled in these pages.



Susan Boyd is a professor at the University of Victoria. Donald MacPherson is the former Drug Policy Coordinator for the City of Vancouver. Poet Bud Osborn is a founding member of VANDU. Susan, Donald and Bud have been active for many years working on social justice issues that both strengthen and sustain the community in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver.



A question and discussion period will follow the launch presentation. This event is free and all are welcome.



For more information on Raise Shit! Social Action Saving Lives:

www.fernwoodpublishing.ca



For more information on Harm Reduction Victoria (HRV):

www.harmreductionvictoria.ca