SUPPORT MESSAGES

HER EXCELLENCY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MICHAËLLE JEAN, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA
HIS HONOUR, THE HONOURABLE STEVEN POINT, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
PREMIER GORDON CAMPBELL, PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
CITY OF VANCOUVER
CITY OF BURNABY

Programs in development:

Xenophobia / Racism
• Youth
• Anti-Bullying
• Women/Gender-Based Issues
• Poverty Alleviation
• Social Justice
• Food Security
• Holistic Health & Nutrition
• HIV/AIDS
• Sustainable Living
• Humanitarian Aid
• Programs for Developmentally and Physically-Challenged
• Peace-Building / Conflict Resolution
• Monthly Screenings
• Afrobeat Soundscape Collective
• TPAFF
• African Heritage/Black History Month 2009

This year the Travelling Pan-African Film & Arts Festival (TPAFF), a mobile edutainment branch of the VPAFF, developed an exciting new program in Cape Town to assist in addressing the issue of xenophobia. Using music and film, this program provided insight of displaced refugee communities by engaging both our Canadian and South African audiences in dialogue, song and dance as a tool of communication, and thereby promoting cross-cultural understanding and Pan-African education through arts events in both communities.

To launch the program, we produced and presented an experimental, interactive multi-media installation called The Reel Pan-AfriCAN SoundsCape at the Second Annual Vancouver Pan African Arts, Culture & Film Festival (VPAFF) in October 2008. This Canada-South Africa co-production explored the role of arts and culture in promoting refugee rights, reconciliation and re-integration while seeking to transform xenophobia into cross-cultural understanding. The installation featured the VPAFF’s inaugural LIVE Canada-South Africa interaction using internet-based video conferencing.

Unlike the old model of international 'aid' which can reinforce a dependency on donors from disempowered populations and create further barriers to self-sufficiency, our approach to global education and international development is about creating opportunities for people in both 'developed' and 'developing' nations to share their experiences, expressions and insights through the powerful mediums of film and music.