Paying the Bills & Doing Work with Meaning

To us, it felt like 2017 was a year of asking ourselves about our roles in the world:
What responsibility do we have to ourselves, to our neighbours, to both our communities and those we aren’t a part of?
How am I using my voice, body, presence and resources to positively impact the world and my community?
How can I make a difference, and still pay the bills?

Join us on Tuesday, March 27th, for an ALL-AGES evening of listening and learning, as Heather Stoutenburg and Melody Ma share stories of their journey to aligning their work with their values.
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EVENT SCHEDULE

6:30 pm: Doors Open. Catch up with familiar faces and get acquainted with new ones over pizza & non-alcoholic beverages
7:00 : Introduction and first talk & Q&A
7:45: Break for more food and drinks
8:00: Second talk & Q&A
8:30: Wrap up and mingling
8:45 pm: Event end
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TALKS

"Your Values at Work: How to do what we do and not hate ourselves."
Heather Stoutenburg

Have you ever felt like your job and your values don’t exactly align? Have you ever considered making the jump to something more meaningful, but felt like you didn’t know where to start? In this talk, Heather shares her personal journey that took her from digital agency life to a job in politics, and the lessons she learned along the way.

"How to change the world and make it a better place, your way"
Melody Ma

Everyone in tech seems to want to "change the world and make it a better place" through some revolutionary technology or service. But to do either, you don't have to reinvent transportation like Elon Musk or be a billionaire philanthropist like Bill Gates. All you need to do is apply the skills you already have in design, development or content creation, to causes you care deeply about.

Melody Ma will talk about her journey in civic advocacy from the arts to coding education and now cultural and urban activism. She will trace her path of how she discovered the causes she is passionate about and how she found a way to employ the technology and marketing skills she has to advance those causes.

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Our Guest Speakers

MELODY MA
Melody Ma software product manager, web developer, and a civic advocate. She advocates on many socio-cultural issues in Vancouver and BC including Chinatown, arts, culture and coding education. She combines her skills in technology and marketing to turbocharge her advocacy campaigns.

Some of the advocacy campaigns Melody has led include #SaveChinatownYVR, therealfightforbeauty.ca campaign that highlighted the role of "artwashing" by real estate developers in Vancouver, the rollback of the new City of Vancouver logo, and advocating for the City of Vancouver to adopt cultural sustainability policy while she was a member of the City's Arts and Culture Policy Council. Melody's advocacy work and writing has been featured on the Vancouver Sun, the Province, the Globe and Mail, Metro News, South China Morning Post, the Georgia Straight, CBC, CKNW, News1130, Global News, among other media outlets. In 2017, Melody was featured as a local change maker on the cover of Georgia Straight for 2017's International Women's Day.

HEATHER STOUTENBURG
Heather Stoutenburg spent a decade in digital agencies sneaking politics into content strategy. Now she works at the BC NDP, where she sneaks content strategy into politics. In content and in politics, Heather is deeply committed to inclusive ideas, meaningful conversations, and using technology to build a bigger tent. In her spare time, Heather chairs the board of LOVE BC ­– a non-profit that teaches media, art and leadership skills to young people facing multiple barriers. She lives in East Vancouver with her spouse and a one-eyed cat.