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Katrina Pacey hands out legal rights cards at Hastings and
Main in July 2002. Photo: Randall Cisco, The Vancouver
Courier.
The idea to establish Pivot came to
its co-founder John Richardson while working for environmental
lawyers Sierra Legal Defence Fund, located a block from Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside, in 2000.
While working at Sierra Legal, he talked to
many people in the neighbourhood with legal problems who had
no way of accessing legal support. In the same way that lawyers
at Sierra Legal were using the law to protect the environment,
Richardson saw the positive impact that legal support could
have on the lives of marginalized people in the Downtown Eastside.
The Downtown Eastside
East Hastings Street, Vancouver. Once the centre of the city, the area is a microcosm of social problems present in every city in North America.
The Downtown Eastside is notorious in Vancouver.
The poorest postal code in Canada, the area is a microcosm
of social problems present in every city in North America.
Nowhere else, however, have those problems reached such a
concentration as in the Downtown Eastside. |
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What is Pivot?
Pivot Legal Society
is a non-profit legal advocacy organization located
in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Pivot's mandate is to take a strategic
approach to social change, using the law to address
the root causes that undermine the quality of life of
those most on the margins. We believe that everyone,
regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive
community where values such as opportunity, respect and
equality are strongly rooted in the law.
The basic concept underlying Pivot's name
and mission is that a critical pressure point of social
change is to be found at the lower edge of legal and
social boundaries. By systematically challenging the
attitudes and institutions of power that enable marginalization,
Pivot strives to move us towards a more tolerant, inclusive
and compassionate society.
By aggressively advancing the interests
and defending the legal entitlements of the most disenfranchised,
Pivot aims for a "trickle-up" effect of respect
and acceptance that will ultimately benefit all.
External link: Pivot founded to give leverage to the city's disadvantaged (Vancouver Sun, June 15, 2007) |
Over 5,000 injection drug users live within
the neighbourhood's 10-block area, where overdose and suicide
are leading causes of death.
Most residents live well below the poverty line,
many challenged by mental illness, disability, addiction,
and homelessness.
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