Spirit at Work presents
 

Thursday, March 18, 2010
        12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
 
 
 
Vancouver's Post-Olympic Social Plan: No more short-term charity
 
 
 
with Michael McCarthy, 
Ethics in Action Winner, Author and Intentional Traveller
 
 
Are charity and random acts of kindness enough to foster long-term social change? ...Is there a better way?

The world has discovered Vancouver, thanks to the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. However, when our global visitors leave, the city's urgent social issues will remain: homelessness, drug addiction, limited mental health services and inadequate housing for the poor.

What will our response be? Will Vancouver continue to apply short-term fixes like food banks, shelters, welfare and "random acts of kindness" as public policy? Has an attitude of short-term "charity" towards the disadvantaged stifled effective, lasting change?

Join Michael as he describes his civic and spiritual vision of "intentionality": a compassionate, long-term plan that identifies and tackles our most urgent and systemic problems.

                    
             click here to RSVP  -or-  phone: 604-685-6560


Date:           Thursday, March 18, 2010  –  12:00 - 1:30 pm

Location:    Main Floor, Conference Rooms, Terasen Building,
                   1111 W. Georgia St. (at Thurlow), Vancouver

Cost:           Without lunch: $10
                   With lunch:  non-members - $20;  members - $15

Lunch:        Catered sandwiches, salad, tea and coffee
                   (RSVP requested for food)

                              __________________________

About our Speaker:

Michael McCarthy is a journalist, freelance writer and media professional with 20 years' experience in radio, newspapers (including the Vancouver Courier), books, magazines and online publications. Focused on ways to make the world a better place, he has written extensively about homelessness, poverty, micro-entrepreneurship, housing, global warming and saving the environment.

From 1992-97, Michael was founder and editor of Spare Change, a newspaper for Vancouver's homeless that sold one million copies. He hired hundreds of street-involved people to tell their stories and sell newspapers on the street. Michael received the Ethics in Action Award for this project and was profiled on national TV from coast to coast. He has also written six books, including an upcoming biography of futurist Frank Ogden. And several of his short stories have been published in Best American Travel Writing.

When not writing, Michael travels to third-world countries to fund grassroots aid projects and practise micro-philanthropy. His videos about his "intentional travels" include trips to Nepal, India, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Taiwan and China. His website, Intentional-Traveler.com: Journeys with Purpose and Meaning features stories of his trips to orphanages, clinics and prisons. Michael lives in North Vancouver with his wife and teenage son. (For more on his work, please see www.intentional-traveler.com.)


           click here to RSVP  -or-  phone: 604-685-6560


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