Hidden Truths will be installed at Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture, 10248 – 106 Street, from April 13, 2012 to May 12, 2012.

An opening reception will be held Friday April 13, 2012 7:00 pm –10:00 pm, with refreshments, dialogue with volunteers involved with coordinating Hidden Truths, community members, and a cash bar will be available.

Hidden Truths gratefully acknowledges funding from the Edmonton Arts Council (EAC) and support from Latitude 53 Contemporary Visual Culture.

For more information please contact: Moyra Lang 780-953-9836 (moyra@ualberta.ca) or Tanya Driechel or Matt McCoy at 780-437-0061

The EPL Book Borrowing Project is in dire need of more volunteers. We met to sort out the volunteer delivery schedule last night, and there are vacant slots that need to be filled.

Here’s a quick summary of the responsibilities of the volunteer:

• EPL book delivery occurs once a month (the third Wednesday of the month).
• The volunteer needs to pick up the book delivery at the Woodcroft Library, located at 13420 114 Avenue, and be at the EIFW from 6-8pm.
• The volunteer is also responsible for returning last month’s delivery to the Woodcroft Library upon leaving the EIFW at 8pm.
• The volunteer is responsible for electronically transcribing the women’s book requests and emailing that list to me within one week of the scheduled visit.
• Two volunteers are scheduled for each visit – typically, one person picks ups the delivery, and the other person returns the previous month’s delivery to the library.
• You will need a car.

The time commitment is quite small, and the reward of visiting with the women on book delivery day is pretty awesome – everybody is *very* excited to get their books.

The schedule has been made through 2012, and the following dates require an additional volunteer:

• May 16^th
• July 18^th (two volunteers needed)
• August 15^th
• September 19^th
• October 17^th
• December 19^th

If you are interested in volunteering for this project, please contact me right away. It is important that volunteers are able to commit to this project, so please only get in touch with me if you can absolutely commit to a certain date(s) – pending unplanned life stress, that is. J Feel free to ask any questions about this project as well – I am the EPL coordinator, so I hope I can answer any and all questions that come my way. I will do my best to make sure that new volunteers are paired with experienced volunteers.
Here’s hoping we can fill these slots – it would be devastating if this service had to be cancelled because we don’t have enough volunteers.
-Amanda

Books Behind Bars is a short documentary film that follows the development and growth of the library, its programs, and the people inside the only multi-level women’s prison facility in Western Canada.

Over the past few years, the Subcommittee has grown from a group of four librarians to a group of over twenty active volunteers, who organize many projects, such as books clubs, book drives, and borrowing projects.  Among these is the Storybook Project, where the volunteers record women reading to their children, and send the recordings, along with the books, to their children.”

A panel discussion will follow the presentation.  This event is being held as a fundraiser to support the on-going library projects at the prison and to purchase materials for the prison library – anyone can attend for free but the suggested donation is $10 or whatever you can afford. Other donations will also be gratefully accepted.

The Federal Government is considering a bill that would bring in mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes. That would mean more people in Canada’s prisons. And according to the Correctional Investigator of Canada, that’s a big problem … especially for women.

You can listen to the podcast of the interview with “Rachel” a woman on parole who speaks very frankly about her experiences in Grand Valley Prison in Ontario, as well as an interview with Howard Sapers the Ombudsman for Corrections Canada.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

http://www.senatorgrantmitchell.ca/speeches/12600.aspx

For those of you into quantifiable data, the BBC article also refers to this report on the “collateral costs” of increasing incarceration levels in the U.S.

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Thanks!