Category: Equality

The organization, LavaMae X, builds mobile shower units across the US for people sleeping rough to clean themselves in privacy and safety. Since Smiley News first covered the initiative, they have stepped up their efforts and are rapidly spreading to new states in an unprecedented collaboration with other groups.

Together with homeless charities from across the US, they are running pop-up care villages, mini-events for community organizations to pool their resources for people experiencing homelessness. They offer everything from mental health and medical services to the aforementioned mobile showers. 

The events unite providers from local communities to support and pamper guests with much-needed free showers, haircuts, massages, medical and dental care, legal advice, and employment assistance. They often give away free clothing and other essentials, accompanied by live music and free meals.

“I love PUCVs. They’re joyous. They create a venue where organizations that normally don’t come together can connect. They’re a moving experience for the service providers and volunteers. And they can produce lasting benefits for guests,” says LavaMaeX CEO Kris Kepler.

LavaMaeX’s own PUCVs in downtown Oakland in 2022 yielded more than 550 referrals to housing, mental health, and employment aid.

These PUCVs are expanding around the country as non-profits adopt the model to help more unhoused people in communities far and wide. 

Organizations hosting events include the BeHeard Movement, Aspire of Life, and BeTheChangeYYC.

Each organization is adapting the model to suit the needs of different communities. For example, BeHear, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, teamed up with local organizations and companies to host an event promoted by Tulsa officials.

City council members, local media, Starbucks, Walmart, food trucks, ministerial organizations, and a neighborhood association all gathered to offer food, music, laundry services, massages, showers, bike repairs, food stamps, and more.

The event brought together 580 guests, 67 partners, and 55 volunteers. Evan J. Dougoud, BeHeard’s founder says it was the first time all these community organizations and supportive city officials had come together in one place. 

“It was like a breath of fresh air, the energy,” he says.

For Aspire of Life, the event raised well-needed funds for mobile shower units in Omaha, Nebraska.

Elsewhere, BeTheChange, in Calgary, Canada, held an event that attracted over 600 people. 

Event co-coordinator Bill Zheng discovered LavaMaeX’s PUCV model on YouTube in August 2021 and accessed the toolkit. Later, he volunteered with BeTheChangeYYC, whose staff walk the streets of Calgary four nights a week with essentials for people experiencing homelessness to provide them with resources.

When one of these staff members brought up the idea of a grassroots collaboration, Zheng had a lightbulb moment. It was in that moment that Zheng, now a nursing student, came across the PUCV model.

The community collaboration event they hosted brought together people from all walks of life together, including the community’s indigenous population.

“The indigenous drumming was the glue of the whole event,” Zheng says. “People were laughing, dancing, singing and rapping, and everybody cheered our grassroots partner Sobercrew to keep on drumming!”

The event allowed many community organizations to gain exposure and community engagement. 

BeTheChangeYYC partnered with SafeLink Alberta, a local harm reduction agency, and secured two grants to fund the event. It welcomed a newcomer to the sector: A Chinese immigrant organization, ECSSEN Career School, which will attend, delivering services to people who don’t speak English and raising awareness for its new Chinese-language crisis hotline. Zheng, a former ECSSEN volunteer, is excited about deepening the school’s ties to the city’s greater social service community.

The events are creating a ripple effect, sparked by the original LavaMae model. Communities are given the know-how and support to implement these programs to help the people around them. 

“We’re working to change the way the world sees and serves people experiencing homelessness, and a genuinely fun event that forges new connections in tandem with offering real-time services accelerates that process,” Kepler says. 

Charity check-in

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

Beacon Food Forest. This is one of the largest food forests in the country. Find out more and support them here. 

American Forests. A conservation organization focused on preserving and protecting American forests. Support them here.

Cultural Survival. They are an indigenous-led nonprofit focused on empowering indigenous Americans and helping the planet. Find out more. 

This article aligns with the UN SDG No Poverty.

It’s no secret that it’s hard to break into the creative industries – hello Nepo Baby debate – but it’s definitely harder for some than for others. Individuals from marginalised communities, including ethnic minorities and those from low-income backgrounds, are going to find it a lot harder than many others to find a job in the creative world.

What most people need when they are struggling is a mentor – someone to listen, give advice, and connect them – and that’s exactly what the Creative Mentor Network provides.

The Creative Mentor Network was founded in 2014, based on the belief that “our industries should reflect the diversity of our society” – something we love and agree with wholeheartedly!

Today, the Creative Mentor Network mentors young people – partnering them with adults who are already working in the creative industry and can give advice. They run partnerships with companies to help them reach young creatives through their jobs board, to help diversify the creative industries.

Smiley News had the amazing opportunity to talk to one of the brilliant mentors from The Creative Mentor Network – Adam Oyejobi, who is a Producer at Biscuit Films. Adam worked one-on-one with a young person hoping to build a career in the creative industry.

Initially, mentors are connected with a mentee by the team at Creative Mentor Network, to create the best match. 

“My mentee was interested in short films, and he wanted to do a producer’s masterclass of how to be a producer,” explains Adam. “I had just produced a short film … in the London Film Festival … that’s why they matched us.”

Mentor-mentee pairs meet at least eight times over a 16-week course, but Adam says he and his mentee met or talked online far more often than that, just because of how it worked naturally.

“It’s all about finding a balance,” explains Adam. “My mentee was studying and also working full time. Everyone has mentees of different ages and … it’s about finding the balance between what works for both you and your mentee.”

“We had a relationship where we could contact each other whenever. Even if it was [just] for 15 minutes, we’d have a conversation. It was just about [being] flexible with each other and making sure that he was getting [what] he needed to get out of the programme.”

Adam was initially uncertain about being a mentor, thinking he was too young and new to the creative industry himself. However, he discovered that he was more experienced than he realised.

“[The relationship was] super fulfilling. It made me realise I know more than I think I do. For someone that doesn’t know anything about what you do and has never been in that environment … I have five years experience to [give], but I wasn’t thinking of it that way because of my age,” says Adam. “It’s not [about having] a parent-child relationship. You’re supposed to offer more of a support system.”

“It’s about listening to that person’s needs and helping them find solutions and come up with a plan on how they can attack some of their goals and reach some of their targets. There’s more you can offer than you think.”

Creative Mentor Network trains each mentor, covering safeguarding issues and teaching mentors how best to work with their mentees. As Adam rightfully said, it isn’t about a parent-child relationship full of orders and instructions, it’s about giving advice and learning more about your mentee so you can give them the best help possible.

If you’re interested in becoming a mentor, or a mentee, with the Creative Mentor Network, you can get in touch through their website.

Charity check-in 

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

The Fawcett Society. This is the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights. Support them here.

The Diversity Trust CIC. This Community Interest Company, established in 2012 in the UK, has a mission to ‘influence social change to create a fairer and safer society’. Learn more here.

Equally Ours. This s a UK charity that brings together people and organisations working across equality, human rights and social justice to make a reality of these in everyone’s lives. Find out more here.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Reduced Inequalities.

The whitewashing of history in American schools is an ongoing issue. Whether it involves teaching about colonial figures such as Christopher Columbus, the existence of queer people or racial violence, American public schools rarely give pupils the full picture.

Today institutions around the US are beginning to ban books, exacerbating the problem. The American Library Association documented more than 2,500 attempted book bans in 2022 – the highest number since the ALA began tracking censorship data more than 20 years ago. 

This is something the educational organization, The Radical Agenda, is working to address.

“Our ‘radical agenda’ is the belief that all aspects of American history need to be included in education. Our mission is to let every child see that there are heroes in our country’s history who looked like them and loved like they do,” they state. 

“Knowledge inspires empathy. Empathy creates unity.”

It all started when Critical Race Theory (CRT) became a heated topic in school board meetings. At the time, The Radical Agenda founder Amanda Spencer was astounded that school staff were so vehemently against teaching about racial equality. As she watched people fighting to remove Black history from the US curriculum she decided to take action.

“I like puns, and I just kind of offhandedly mentioned, ‘Guys I’m gonna make a planner called the Radical Agenda and it’s just gonna have American history facts scattered throughout and that’s how I’m gonna help educate the world,” Amanda tells Smiley News. “I was just kind of laughing about it and then I sat back and thought, ‘Actually, that sounds like a really fun idea.’”

Today The Radical Agenda offers much more than the original planner Amanda created. The website has expanded to cover queer history, book reviews and the biographies of historical figures. 

Amanda is full of enthusiasm as she speaks about the project.

“I have just this whole list of things and people and ideas and notes on my phone of just all the different topics,” she says. “Part of the planner is every month I have a monthly learning moment and a short essay on a first thing or a topic or an event in history that needs more background.”

Right now, Amanda works as a nurse but plans to eventually make The Radical Agenda her full-time job.

“I would love to be able to work for myself just doing all this resource work,” Amanda says. “I want to be able to do some vlogs as I take my kids to Washington DC and Birmingham, Alabama, to see all of these places and these things, tell the history, bring it to life for people and make them excited to learn the things that have been hidden from them.”

All of this is so important to Amanda because the history was hidden from her as she grew up. She hopes to prevent that happening to anyone else, opening up access to resources and education.

“It’s a pattern in history and we need to look at these patterns and we need to see what’s going on inside of it so that we can make change,” she says.

Charity check-in

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

GLAAD. GLAAD is a massive LGBTQ+ advocacy group that helps fight for queer people across the US. Consider donating. 

Lambda Legal. This organization helps fight in the courtroom for queer people. Find out more.

The Trevor Project. They focus on suicide prevention and mental health support for queer youth. Support them here. 

This article aligns with the UN SDG Partners of the Goals.

Finding community is important to everyone. Humans are social animals, and feeling a part of something is important for our mental and physical health. 

Loneliness, especially following the pandemic, came into view as genuinely dangerous to people’s bodies and minds. A 2016 study led by Newcastle University epidemiologist Nicole Valtorta, Ph.D., for example, linked loneliness to a 30 percent increase in the risk of stroke or the development of coronary heart disease.

“Lacking encouragement from family or friends, those who are lonely may slide into unhealthy habits,” Valtorta said. “In addition, loneliness has been found to raise levels of stress, impede sleep and, in turn, harm the body. Loneliness can also augment depression or anxiety.”

This is very difficult for queer people, many of whom lose family and friends as part of their journey of self-acceptance and coming out. It can be a struggle to find others like them, and dating can be very difficult. 

That’s where something like the Conscious Girlfriend Academy comes in. 

The Conscious Girlfriend Academy is a resource supporting lesbians and queer women in conscious dating, relationships, and sexuality. The goal is to help women and femmes connect more with themselves and dating, and in turn, foster a community of people like them.

The co-founder Dr. Ruth Schwartz created the academy when she was playfully discussing what “certifications” her girlfriend had to date her. The idea kept spinning and eventually turned into Conscious Girlfriend.

“We decided to start offering some workshops for lesbians,” Ruth tells Smiley News. “At first we didn’t know if they would be primarily for lesbian couples, but it turned out that most of whom came were singles, and we realize that there was an enormous need out there for lesbians and queer women who in particular had had a number of difficult relationships.”

A lot of that early work came to a head in 2020 when the pandemic hit. By that time Ruth had already written a book on the subject and had been teaching classes for years but when the pandemic pushed people online the Conscious Girlfriend had to adapt by offering classes online, officially starting the Conscious Girlfriend Academy. 

“I literally thought maybe 15 or 20 women will show up but I had 67 women attending that first month. And then just more and more started coming and more and more wanted it to continue,” Ruth says. “It’s become a global resource teaching about lesbian dating relationships and sexuality with women from 25 countries showing up and taking the classes.”

The courses are open to all types of women; trans or cis and other femme people along the gender spectrum. Ruth, through the Academy just wants to help teach people the skills to have healthy and happy relationships. 

“I think also the way that two women tend to go about dating, relating, loving and having sex. We have particular challenges that aren’t the same as heterosexual or gay male challenges,” she says.

It all circles back to finding a way to be seen and heard by people that understand where you’re coming from. 

“I think for queer people in general, there’s just a little barrier,” Ruth says. “It’s like we have laid out lots of straight friends or do things in the straight world, but we don’t quite 100% feel at home because you don’t know when somebody’s going to say or do something weird.”

“You don’t get to really breathe and feel at home unless you’re with people that are more like you.”

Charity check-in

At Smiley Movement, we like to elevate the work of charities across the world. Here are three charities whose causes align with the themes in this article.

GLAAD. GLAAD is a massive LGBTQ+ advocacy group that helps fight for queer people across the US. Consider donating. 

Lambda Legal. This organization helps fight in the courtroom for queer people. Find out more.

The Trevor Project. They focus on suicide prevention and mental health support for queer youth. Support them here. 

This article aligns with the UN SDG Partners of the Goals.