40th Anniversary Legacy Project Update
The last 12 months have been both challenging and gratifying and daunting and exhilarating!
Our 40th Anniversary Year of Celebrations ended with what many said was one of the best ever social events in our community’s history – the 40th Anniversary Gala celebration. It was also a very successful fundraiser for the 40th Anniversary Legacy Project with many Donors stepping up to help. 0ver 500 people attended the Gala dance entertained by the delightful visiting 6-piece Goa Amigos band. In addition, the Legacy Project raised $10,000, thanks to some very generous sponsors who believed in the project.
The project is focussed on capturing and celebrating the history and experience of not only the Goan Association but also the migration and settlement story of the broader Goan, Mangalorean, East Indian, Anglo Indian and other Indian Catholic communities as they settled, adjusted and then thrived in British Columbia.
We are one of the few communities with very little documented record of our history in British Columbia and Canada and this project begins to fill that void a little. This is a multiphase project led by us and Cory Correia and with many participants and helpers. The primary videographer is Michael Topscura.
In 2016 the project produced a special keepsake brochure for the 40th Anniversary Gala Dance. A lot of history was obtained and included in that edition. Also presented at the Gala Dance was the project’s first video which featured the story of young immigrant family interspersed with scenes of our community’s music, food and culture and interviews with some of GOA Vancouver’s early founding members.
In 2017 interviews with family and community groups were captured along with scenes from our cultural events including the Canada 150/World Goa Day picnic and the visit of Bombay & Goa mega star Lorna Cordeiro.
The project is expected to wrap up in 2018 with completion and release of an integrated video and other documentary records capturing all of the above and more.
We are grateful for the support we have received from the sponsors of the project, from the participants and from the volunteers and organizers.
Thanks for all your active and ongoing support and participation and please do not hesitate to contact one of us or Cory if you are interested in participating in the Legacy Project.
Villa Pinto and Carol D’Sa
Co-Chairs, 40th Anniversary Celebrations and Legacy Project
40th Anniversary Legacy Project filming/interviewing at Canada 150 Picnic
Objective: To capture the immigration experience, as a legacy, of the whole community. Most other cultures have legacy stories published but there is virtually nothing about our community. The idea is to create a documentary and archival record of the immigration experience of Goans, Mangaloreans, East Indians, and Anglo Indians who migrated to the lower mainland. Video graphing families and the various groups that hold these communities together began last year as part of the GOA’s 40th Anniversary legacy project. A short video and a special Keepsake Brochure were produced and featured at the 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration. A longer video is now being produced and most of the filming will take place at the GOA’s Canada 150 picnic on August 2017. The legacy video and other written and recorded material will be made available to libraries and educational institutions to record our story for future generations
Who can participate? Anyone who migrated to Vancouver in groups of 10+, families, and larger groups those hold our community together. (eg groups that organize events for the community – camping, picnics, dances, senior group, Indo-Canadian mass etc)
Format: Filming & Interviewing
Filming: Most of the filming will be in a private room, strictly timed. In addition, the picnic events and outdoors happenings will be filmed. The videographer will be the interviewer. Everyone will have the same questions. Questions are generic and about the experience of immigrating to the lower main land. People can request to preview the list of question. Not every question will be asked. Remember we don’t want to make it look like answers are memorized etc. Filming will be from 12 noon to 3 o’clock. Each interview will be about 10/15minutes. Every family/group will have a general prepared introduction (Name of family/group and year of migration).
If you are interested in this project please contact me. Assign a leader in the group as a contact send me their email address (villap@shaw.ca) and the time best suited for the interview every effort will be made to accommodate. (The contact will keep the group informed of the details and be responsible to get the group at the location 5/10 minutes before the scheduled time. Assign a lead speaker or you can have multiple speakers. Each question can be answered by different people. We want this to be fun! More importantly we want everyone in the community to talk within the community or their families about their immigration experience. – It is amazing how similar we are even though we tend to focus on our differences!
In addition, we will also be compiling a written history/brochure this year or earlier next year. All families that are interviewed can if they like submit an article for publication “In Their Own Words”- of their experience about immigrating to B.C.
THANK YOU FOR BEING A PART OF THE COMMUNITY & SHARING YOUR STORIES
Villa Pinto and Carol D’sa
Co-Chairs, 40th Anniversary Committee and Legacy Project
