[van-announce] Friday, Feb. 12, 3pm TAKE BACK OUR CITY at the VAG

[alissa w]

- please post widely - 

TAKE BACK OUR CITY:

‘Welcome’ the 2010 Olympic Torch with Free Games, Free Food and Free Speech!

* Friday, February 12, 2010, 3pm 
* Vancouver Art Gallery (Georgia Street, between Howe and Hornby)

Join us in a public festival at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 3pm followed by a march to protest the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics at BC Place Stadium.  As the Winter Games begin, we will show the world the negative impacts of the Olympic industry and celebrate our communities with our own games and entertainment.

* The 2010 Welcoming Committee supports the participation of parents and caregivers. Childcare arrangements and registration at:  2010welcoming.wordpress.com/details

While City and Olympic officials try to turn our city into a sanitized corporate image, we experience:

*  Increasing homelessness, poverty, illegal evictions and rent increases,
*  Union-busting and public services cutbacks with a $6 billion Olympic budget,
*  Threats to civil liberties and crackdowns on visible poverty,
*  At least 15,000 police, soldiers, spies and security forces and public video monitoring,
*  Corporate sponsors engaged in arms manufacturing, human rights abuses, and the environmentally destructive Alberta Tar Sands,
*  Exploitation of unceded Indigenous land and resources,
*  Major environmental damage to build the ‘Green Games,’ and more ...

Public space has been turned over to the Games but the community has fought back and preserved our rights to protest.  Now is your chance to Stand Up, Be Counted and Take Back Our City! 

Organized by the 2010 Welcoming Committee: community groups, service providers, activists and educators united by a social justice critique of the Games. 

Contact:  2010welcoming at resist.ca  
Visit:  2010welcoming.wordpress.com 

The 2010 Welcoming Committee is endorsed by:

2010 Watch, Alliance for People’s Health, Anti-Poverty Committee, Bridgeview Community Action Group, Building Bridges Human Rights – Vancouver, Bus Riders’ Union, Check your Head, Citywide Housing Coalition, Colour Connected Against Racism – UBC, Co-op Radio Bulland Awaaz, Co-op Radio The Rational, Community Olympics Watch, Council of Canadians – National, Council of Canadians – Delta/Richmond Chapter,  Council of Canadians- Vancouver/Burnaby Chapter, Council of Senior Citizens Organizations – Sunshine Coast Chapter, DTES Community Arts Network, DTES Power of Women Group, East Van Abolitionists, Ethical Environmental Consulting, Federation of Iranian Refugees, Food not Bombs – Vancouver, Freedom Socialist Party, Friends of Women in the Middle East Society, GatewaySucks.org, Impact of the Olympics on Communities Coalition, Indigenous Action Movement, Industrial Workers of the World, Iran Solidarity, Justicia 4 Migrant Workers, Latin America Connexions Collective,  no2010.com, No 2010 Victoria, No One Is Illegal – Vancouver, OilSandsTruth.org, Olympic Resistance Network, Pink Resistance, Poverty Olympics, Progressive Nepali Forum in Americas, Siraat Collective,  Progressive Nepali Forum in Americas, Simon Fraser University Public Research Interest Group, Social Justice Centre – UBC, Solidarity Notes Labour Choir, StopWar.ca, Streams of Justice, Student Christian Movement – UBC, subMedia, Surrey Urban Youth Project, Teaching Support Staff Union Social Justice Committee, UBC Network of Sri Lankan Law Students, Vancouver Action, Vancouver Status of Women,  VANDU Womyn’s Group, Warrior Publications, West End Wild Animal Alliance, Whister Watch, Workers Communist Party of Iran, and Work Less Party.