Check out an upcoming event by one of our partners, the Nile Sisters Development Initiative!

SAVE THE DATE: Nile Sisters Development Initiative - "Celebrating Our 10th Anniversary"

Nile Sisters Development Initiative will be hosting its annual fundraising event on Saturday, September 17th, 2011. The theme of the luncheon will be "Celebrating Our 10th Anniversary". Please mark your calender. More details will follow shortly. For more information about this upcoming event, please visit our website at www.Nilesisters.org. Thank you.

When	Sat, September 17, 11am – 2pm GMT-07:00
Where	7715 Draper Avenue, La Jolla, CA 92037-4380

Thank you,

Elizabeth Lou, President/CEO

______________________________________________

Nile Sisters Development Initiative 6035 University Avenue Suite # 22 , San Diego, CA 92115 Office: (619) 265-2959 Fax: (619) 265-2998 Website: www.Nilesisters.org

Shrek screening 5/27/11

Shrek screening at Teralta Park was a great success. We had over 300 people come to the park to watch the movie! Definitely the biggest turnout we've had at Teralta Park thusfar. =) Pictures below...

May classes

Kim Shults, the New Arrivals teacher at Hoover High, invited us to come into her classroom to teach her students about filmmaking. She has a total of 22 students from all over the world, including Vietnam, Mexico, Peru, Burma, Yemen, Congo, and Ethiopia! Although the language barrier has been difficult for them, hopefully the universal language of film will help them communicate to the world their unique experiences. We hope through teaching, we'll be able to capture all of their amazing stories, from their journey to the United States to what it's like to acclimate to a new country. Stay tuned!

Free Films at Teralta Park: Wall-E

On April 29th, we had another free film at Teralta Park located in City Heights. This time, we invited families and friends from all around the San Diego community to join us as we showcased the fun film, "Wall-E"!

This little guy was one of the first people to grab a spot in front of our big screen! We gave him a prize for being so awesome. :)

Our staff work hard to get the big screen up and ready before sun-down.

We work hard to outreach to all community members, no matter how big or small!

As the sun went down the temperature also dropped to be very chilly... but families stuck with us and continued to watch the movie. Although we had a rather wet interruption that caused us to end the event early, everyone that came out had a great time with their families and friends.

Please join us for our next free screening also at Teralta Park! Next time, we'll be spending some quality time with a green ogre and his donkey friend. Please come out and watch "Shrek" with us on May 27th at 7:30PM. Hope to see you there!

Senior workshops at Hoover High

Connect SD was invited to do senior workshops at Hoover High in City Heights today, on the topic of "Media Arts & Social Justice." We focused on three topics: multiculturalism, intergenerationalism, and social justice, and then discussed how media arts ties into everything. We did three sessions from 8:40am to 12:15pm in their auditorium, with 50-60 students per session. I'm glad to say that it was a very successful event, and we reached over 150+ seniors! Hopefully they learned the importance of arts & culture from our workshop and are able to incorporate multiculturalism, intergenerationalism, and social justice into their daily lives. Congrats to Wendy and Karla for doing an awesome job facilitating!

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" at Teralta Park

We held our 2nd outdoor screening at Teralta Park on April 1st with a screening of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." Over 300+ people showed! Even City Councilmember Todd Gloria came out to welcome the crowd before the movie started.

Bridget from City Heights Business Association getting ready to pop the popcorn

Eric from City Heights CDC prepping the generator

The "Voices of City Heights" crew (aka Cami, Karla, Mike, and Phuong)
getting ready to do some interviews of residents in the community

Once it started getting dark...
Interviewing City Councilmember Todd Gloria

The popcorn line that never ends

Phil and Eric introducing the film

The crowd. Even more people trickled in as it got darker...

The big screen

Our next screening at Teralta Park will be on Friday, April 29th. Festivities will start at 7pm where we'll have activities for the kids until it's dark enough to start the screening. We'll be showing "Wall-E," so please come out! =)

Focus Group: Discussing Multi-culturalism, Inter-generationalism, and Social Justice

On March 29th, we had the pleasure of gathering with some organizations in City Heights to discuss themes such as:

1. Multi-culturalism

2. Inter-generationalism

3. Promoting social justice through the media arts

Little Saigon Foundation tells us a little about what their organization does :)

City Heights CDC gives us a visual display of their goals.

Latino Youth Council tells us about the active work that they do with their members.

Midcity CAN tells us about their vision for the future.

We were very excited to get these group together and start interacting! :) We were very jittery as the date got closer and all of our plans started falling into place. The staff was very happy when the participants were so responsive!

The input that was brought to the focus group was very informative. There was great interaction between the older and younger generations that were present, as well as great responses to the questions that were posed. Over all, the discussions that took place at the focus group gave all of us here at Connect SD, a look into the bigger picture. The bigger picture on what the community in City Heights wish for the future and the different issues that they want to address.

We are so excited for the next focus group in May and what the new group of City Heights organizations will bring to the table! :)