news // no. 4 theotherpress.ca Entrepreneur Accelerator program set to launch for BC businesswomen 1n music » Assistance for businesswomen in music industry is near Naomi Ambrose Staff Writer omen in Music BC hosted an event designetd to link up all female- identifying people in BC’s music industry. The event was held on September 27 at the Narrow Lounge in Vancouver. Several female artists and entrepreneurs in BC’s music industry came to mingle with each other and to learn about a new program that is expected to be launched in the province in spring of 2019. According to Creative BC’s website, the upcoming program is similar to the Women in Music Canada Ontario Chapter’s Entrepreneur Accelerator program. The program aims to provide entrepreneurial women in the music industry with practical and theoretical assistance to help them to grow their business. Jess Vaira, a Vancouver singer- songwriter, open mic host and show producer who attended the event organized by Creative BC and Women in Music BC, said in an interview with the Other Press, “I think [it was a] lovely event.” According to the Business Development Bank of Canada’s website, accelerator programs assist emerging businesses by providing them with access to essential resources that will help these businesses to thrive and become self-sufficient. The building of that strong foundation could eventually help these businesses sustain themselves economically and financially. Accelerator programs can be strenuous yet enriching and rewarding. “The accelerator experience is a process of intense, rapid, and immersive education aimed at accelerating the life cycle of young innovative companies, compressing years’ worth of learning-by- doing into just a few months,” said Ian Hathaway in a Harvard Business Review article. Although accelerator programs are usually geared towards new startups, established startups also participate in the programs. The accelerator program could also help to increase the economic sustainability of women employed in the Canadian music industry. This economic sustainability is worth considering— especially if one considers the findings of a survey carried out by Women in Music Canada. According to information retrieved from a 2015 report on Women in Music Canada’s website, “The annual salaries of women in the music industry in 2014 were 27 [percent ] lower on average than the most recently available average annual salary for the sound recording segment in Canada.” For music companies in 2014, the report stated, women made about 10 percent less than that industry’s average. To help with the launch of the BC accelerator program, attendees answered survey questions. The questions were also meant to assess the needs of music businesswomen. Sarah Fenton from Creative BC said in an interview with the Other Press that the event “is the first and the first step of discussion.” Fenton indicated that there is a possibility that additional research will be done in the music industry to gather more information. Fenton also advised that people who are interested in finding out further updates and discussions can follow the Women in Music BC Facebook group. St. John Ambulance offers free opioid overdose response training » Crisis still ongoing Katie Czenczek News Editor acked by the BC government, St. John Ambulance is offering life-saving training throughout the province. Having started out with on-the- street volunteer efforts, the organization found that as much as they could help some people, they could not keep up with overdose deaths. Since December of 2016, St. John Ambulance has sent out volunteers to help prevent overdose deaths in Surrey and the Downtown Eastside. According to the Government of Canada’s website, as of September 12 of this year there were 1,036 deaths allegedly by opioid overdose from January to March; 94 percent of these deaths were accidental. Of these deaths—though the statistics also highlighted that some of these deaths were due to other illicit drugs—3g0 people died in BC alone. For all of Canada, 77 percent of people who died from overdose deaths in this period were males. Drew Binette, who is in charge of Government Relations and Strategic Planning for St. John Ambulance, said in an interview with the Other Press that the volunteer efforts were helping with overdoses on streets, but they started to move indoors. “We had a trained group of volunteers who went out on the street and saved lives,” he said. “Over the year and a half we had saved 139 lives with our volunteers, but what we recognized in the first few months is that overdose deaths were moving inside.” Surrey, Vancouver, and Victoria were the cities hit the hardest by the opioid crisis in British Columbia. In order to further help, St. John Ambulance started introducing courses that would train everyday people in first aid specifically for dealing with opioid overdose, said Binette. “The idea was to provide enough information for people to leave the course feeling confident,” he said. St. John Ambulance offers seven- hour courses that cover how to administer naloxone, a breakdown of what an opioid is, emergency scenario training, how to do artificial respirations with or without naloxone, ongoing care, complications, and Adult CPR and AED training. For those with busy schedules, you can take the three-and-a-half-hour course that covers everything the seven-hour course does, excluding CPR and AED training. From either of these courses, the attendees will be certified with Opioid Overdose Response Training and will be given naloxone kits. Binette stressed that the reason opioids like fentanyl are so easy to overdose on is because it takes very little for severe damage. “Tt only takes two grains of salt worth of fentanyl to overdose,” he said. “The way 1 like to explain it is that it’s like baking chocolate chip cookies. So, when you bake chocolate chip cookies, you hope that every cookie has chocolate chips in it. It’s the same thing when you add fentanyl to adrug, and you don’t actually know how many specks of fentanyl will be in every batch. One batch of meth, coke, or whatever it may be might have no fentanyl in it, while the other batch may be filled with it.” Binette also highlighted how most of these deaths occurred when people were overdosing alone. That’s why St. Photo of Jess Viara via jessviara.com Photo via St. John Ambulance John Ambulance also wants to encourage activism efforts towards reducing stigma around drug use. “Last year we saw a normal progression in deaths,” he said. “The key to getting it out there is getting [naloxone kits] out there, making them free, breaking down the barriers so anyone can get it. It used to be that naloxone was prescribed, but now anyone can get those kits for free.” You can register for these courses online at https://www.startsavinglives. ca, by email at savinglives@bc.sja.ca, or by phone at 604-321-2651.