April Smith and Hendrik Beune are known for their longtime DTES community involvement and advocacy work as well as social media photo and video documentation portraying the personal stories of the residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. They have been involved with social justice and community engagement issues on a local and international level and have represented the DTES neighbourhood as trusted community spokespeople during the 2010 Olympics. April and Hendrik made presentations on the impact of Mega-events in Geneva, Switzerland prior to the Olympics and about a documentary on the DTES community in Vienna and Linz, Austria, just this year. The CBC, Globe and Mail, Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Courier and many other media outlets have often interviewed them for their unique and honest perspective on local issues.
This past spring, April and Hendrik graduated from SFU’s Certificate in Community Capacity Building program and soon after initiated the opening of a community library at the Bosman Hotel in the Granville District.
What inspired you to pursue opening the Bosman Community Library? How did you engage residents in the process?
We were inspired to pursue opening the Bosman Community Library because we are peer support workers and we live and work in the community. We have dealt with and still do deal with many of the same issues as the residents we work with. Issues such as poverty, obstacles to employment, the influence of addiction, physical and mental health problems in our community. In this way we have the ability to build close relationships with a very deep understanding of the needs of our residents. We use our capacity to develop different programs specifically designed to address the needs of our residents at the Bosman Hotel.
The Bosman Community Library grew naturally and came forth out of necessity through interaction and mediation. In our role as peer specialists, we engage with our residents by holding weekly meetings and we ask them what they are interested in. Through this collaborative process we found out that many of the residents are uncomfortable with going too far from their home. Many feel unwelcome at the public library and some are unable to travel to the public library due to physical disabilities. Other residents lack the I.D. to get a library card or lack the sense of responsibility or mere ability to take out and return library books on time. If they accumulate overdue fines, they feel they would not be able to pay these back and thus the public library becomes out of reach to them.
The Bosman Community Library was a success even before it opened, with many of the residents being very excited as soon as they heard about it. Word about the forthcoming library spread fast and positive feedback soon followed. A party for the grand opening of the library was conceived and many of the residents couldn't wait to see the new library for themselves. We didn't know if this level of popularity would last but we were thrilled to find that with the growth of our library's book collection so did the growth of the library's popularity.
We have learned that an in-house library at the Bosman community gives the residents the complete freedom to take out as many books as they want, whenever they want, without fear of incurring fines or penalties. It gives the residents a quiet, relaxing sanctuary, where they can go to enjoy a book in a welcoming environment. The Bosman Community Library is a productive place where the residents can go and socialize with other like-minded residents; it differs from other gathering places in the Bosman such as the bistro, which is often noisy and chaotic.
Where did all the books comes from?
The books in the Bosman Community Library have all been donated by generous individuals from their own private collections. The Vancouver Public Library and local businesses such as Banyen Books have also made significant contributions. The residents of the Bosman are a diverse group and so are the books that have been donated: a suitable mix with books to suit all tastes. We received our books and periodicals as the result of asking friends and writing to local businesses requesting donations. The volume of books acquired has been more of a success then we could have ever imagined. What we could really use now is some more shelves to house the books; at the same time, we are not adverse to more donations of good quality books either.
What is your approach to community capacity building? Does literacy have a role to play?
A practical approach to community capacity building is that education may be the key to changing one's life. We believe that there is no better way of educating people than through the enhancement of literacy skills with improved communication, reading and writing abilities. The more informed people are in a community the better their chances are to improve their own lives and the lives of others in their community. With improved literacy and readily available information we believe that the residents of the Bosman are empowered and that this empowerment brings confidence and self-esteem.
Whereas the Bosman Community Library grew out of our natural love of books and reading and the library was started purely as a quiet and relaxing place for the residents to enjoy a good book, the obvious importance of literacy and education became very apparent. From a personal perspective, we know first-hand how important books and reading have been in our own lives. For us literacy has been absolutely invaluable, be it for education, self-improvement or simple personal enjoyment. And because we understand that literacy is so fundamentally important, it made perfect sense to us to create an in-house library for the Bosman community.
In general, a lack of self-esteem is one of the biggest obstacles we come up against in the Bosman- (and DTES-) community every day. With so many of the Bosman residents having been victimized, traumatized (PTSD) and rejected by society and their families alike, a certain level of self-loathing is very common. This is often brought on by a long standing belief in mainstream society that people who use drugs are bad people, weak people and degenerates who should be cast off and demeaned by the rest of society as bad role models, who ended up where they are all through faults of their own. This, of course, is not true and we realize that these people are where they are often as a product of their environment, initiated by some mishap or disability. Disenfranchized people live in every community and it is the responsibility of the community to assist them and integrate them as best as they can. In the Bosman community there are no outcasts and we look at improving the lives of all of our residents. With the Bosman Community Library we can promote literacy, which we believe is a small but invaluable first step to raising the quality of life for our people by slowly building up their self-esteem as well as helping them make positive changes in their lives.
Where to from here? For the future of the Bosman Community Library we plan on continuing to build on the foundation we've started. For us this means not just acquiring more books (which we intend to do) but we also plan to customize the library in order to better suit the needs and interests of the Bosman residents. With the Bosman Community Library pilot project being such a success we would love to establish more in-house libraries in other residences similar to that of the Bosman. Through the process of starting up the library we have learned many important lessons, none more important than the need for literacy and the easy access to books. We have also learned that there are a plentitude of very generous people and community minded businesses that understand the importance of literacy and are eager to donate their books to a good cause. We are very proud of the Bosman Community Library and we look forward to continuing to learn and grow with it.
The Bosman Community Library was a success even before it opened, with many of the residents being very excited as soon as they heard about it. Word about the forthcoming library spread fast and positive feedback soon followed. A party for the grand opening of the library was conceived and many of the residents couldn't wait to see the new library for themselves. We didn't know if this level of popularity would last but we were thrilled to find that with the growth of our library's book collection so did the growth of the library's popularity. 
Where to from here? 