Sol Guy stands next to a needle drop-box in a Downtown Eastside alley, and nods to two men dumpster-diving a few metres away.
He’s retracing a scene from an episode in his new MTV series, 4Real, in which he and Hollywood starlet Eva Mendes examine the troubled neighbourhood’s issues, from drug addiction to homelessness.
“We were picking up needles and putting them in here,” said Guy, 33, raising his eyebrows and smiling at the graffiti-covered box.
The series, which Guy hosts, kicks off tonight at 7:30 p.m. on CTV with the first of four “sneak peak” episodes. The entire series, including the Vancouver-based episode, will air in March on MTV in Canada.
In each show, a celebrity — including Mendes, Joaquin Phoenix and Cameron Diaz — travels to meet with local leaders and activists in developing countries, war zones, remote villages and slums.
Phoenix visits an indigenous tribe in the Amazon. Diaz meets a medicine man in Peru. U.K. rapper M.I.A. heads to Liberia to meet a children’s rights advocate. Hip-hop star, K’naan, visits the largest slum in East Africa with a local aid worker.
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside seemed a good fit, said Guy.
“It’s the poorest postal code in Canada and it’s like, yo, we can do better than that as a city,” said Guy. “We have to examine collectively why that place exists, where have we failed?”
The Vancouver episode focuses on health advocate Liz Evans and her work with the Portland Hotel, which has a number of outreach programs for people in the area. While filming in October, Mendes worked in the hotel’s kitchen and joined volunteers at night, collecting used needles in alleys.
“I’ve completely been educated,” Mendes said of her experience. “We can’t look the other way, nor should we look the other way.”
Guy said the experience made him examine his own stereotypes, something he hopes the audience will also do. “I just hope that people in Vancouver recognize the beauty of the people [in the Downtown Eastside] and they’re not to be ignored.”
Josh Thome, 35, an environmental and social activist, created the series with Guy. The childhood friends, who went to elementary school together in Grand Forks, began brainstorming about the series five years ago. They spent two years travelling together before deciding on the format, then creating a pilot. Thome said he hopes the series inspires people to action. “We’ve come so far, but I feel we’re at the starting line,” Thome said in an interview Sunday.
He said the website for the show, www.4Real.com, is important to connecting the audience to issues. It includes background on the people and areas the series features and it is linked to Vancouver-based online giving group, www.givemeaning.com, so people can donate funds.
Thome said he’s particularly proud of the Downtown Eastside episode, to air in March. “It shows you don’t need to travel around the world to find inspiring leaders or issues that need addressing,” said Thome. “You can literally look outside your door.”
Fifty per cent of any profits the show makes will be given to the community leaders and groups including the Portland Hotel, said Guy. “I don’t want to find myself taking advantage of anyone,” he said. “They’re part of it too.”
Go t
o www.4Real.com to learn more.
4Real is an excellent original content create to generate awareness for charitable efforts.
Yahoo has come up with a way to mix social networking with charities and non-profits. Called Yahoo! For Good, it has partnered with ‘charity aggregator’ Network for Good and launched a personalized Charity Badge - for people to put on their websites, social networks or email. To promote the initiative, Yahoo! will match the amount raised by the user who generates the largest number of individual donations from their personal social network (up to $50,000).
