Camas Books & Infoshop is embarking on a number of community initiatives that we are very excited to share with our supporters. In 2024, Camas announced our inaugural Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Project. For an in-depth overview of the application criteria and project goals and scope, visit our Microgrants page. Below is a list of the recipient projects and information about them and their goals.
*Please note: Camas Books does not accept unsolicited requests for funding by groups or individuals. If you are a non-hierarchical collective that has a project that fits one of our themes, please consider applying during the next submission cycle.
Following this list is acknowledgement of our Community Collaboration with Quadra Village Community Centre Community Gardens Coordinator, with whom we received a Growing in the City Grant from the City of Victoria to help maintain the People’s Apothecary. Thanks for reading.
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Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Recipient:
Hiladi Rematriation Project: Construction of Covered Deck for Hiladi Bunkhouse
Amount: $2,000
Collective members: Jason Slade, Tsastilqualas Ambers Umbas, Makwala Smith
Location: Hiladi Village, at the estuary of the Adam River, about 2 hours north of Campbell River in Ma’amtagila Territory
Description of project from the application:
The Hiladi Village project is an assertion of Indigenous sovereignty spear-headed by Ma’amtagila matriarch Tsastilqualus Ambers Umbas, in coordination with broader Kwakwaka’wakw hereditary leadership.
The Ma’amtagila are a nation within the Kwakwaka’wakw, or the people who speak Kwak̓wala. Tsastilqualus and other members of the Matriarch Camp are rebuilding their village on their traditional summer village site at Hiladi, “the place to make things right,” to affirm their Indigenous title and rights and uphold hereditary systems of governance.
The reoccupation of Hiladi Village will enable Tsastilqualus, her son Makwala, their kin, and other Indigenous people to spend time on the land and water, rebuilding relationships and taking up their traditional responsibilities.
The Hiladi Bunkhouse construction is the second building that has been constructed at Hiladi. It is where Tsastilqualas lives, and where guests and other Ma’amtagila people stay when they visit the territory. The building itself was completed in the summer of 2023.
As Hiladi is an exposed maritime environment, the entrance to the bunkhouse is constantly pelted with wind and rain. The bunkhouse entrance needs a covered deck so that people can enter and exit the building during inclement weather without tracking mud and water into the bunkhouse. The bunkhouse has plywood floors and wood heat, so its important that the inside of the building stays dry so it doesn’t mold or get water damaged.
This project will protect the most important building at Hiladi from water damage, and will enable the bunkhouse to be used year round, which will allow Ma’amtagila community members to stay at the village site year round. The village site needs to be occupied year round to prevent it being damaged or destroyed by logging companies or enemies of the Ma’amtagila sovereignty movement
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Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Recipient:
Humans of Fairy Creek 2024
Amount: $1,500
Collective members: Tasha Diamant, Corina Fischer, Aiyana Chauhan-Kendrick, Marmar, Q Magpie, Arnica Adams
Location(s): Edmonton Fringe (Aug 15-24), Victoria (Aug 25-Sept 2), Vancouver Fringe (Sept 5-15), Victoria Anarchist Bookfair (Sept 21)
Description of project from the application:
The Humans of Fairy Creek are a group of volunteer community theatre artists and musicians who are also activists/anarchists. We all, in one way or another, have been involved in the movement known as the Fairy Creek Blockade. Most of the collective are in their 20s, queer, neurodivergent, and living with financial and housing instability.
We believe that the mostly young people who experienced violence from the “Canadian justice system,” while taking a principled and nonviolent stand for old growth forests and Indigenous sovereignty, deserve to have their stories told. We also believe their stories deserve to be linked to the escalating global ecocidal and genocidal atrocities of imperialist and corporate interests. We have made an intention to do our work in a culture of care.
Humans of Fairy Creek 2024 is the sequel to Humans of Fairy Creek: A Variety Show that had a short run at the 2023 Victoria Fringe. Our tagline is: “Featuring people and friends of people who got the shit beat out of them by the RCMP.”
Last year’s show incorporated music and dance; video from the blockades; storytelling; skits; satire; poetry; serious discussion of unresolved issues, such as lateral violence; a tribute to fallen comrades; and an immersive audio piece. It was very successful as far as small theatre events go, with mostly sold out houses and powerful audience reactions.
We are currently in the process of re-devising and modifying our show to travel to the Edmonton and Vancouver Fringes, as well as another run in Victoria.In just one year, capitalist and colonial violence, which is at the foundation of deforestation, has escalated globally at a scale beyond what most people are able to absorb.
We have made an explicit intention to draw connections between the humans of Fairy Creek who got the shit beat out of them by the RCMP and the shit that ALL HUMANS are dealing with worldwide. Normalized live-streamed genocide. Summer days when we can’t breathe. “Inflation.” Collapse of public services like healthcare and education. Militarized police increas-ingly mobilized against peaceful citizens. No housing. Algorithmic hate. Fascism and corruption, breathtaking in the thoroughness and invisibility. SO MANY LIES.
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Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Recipient:
Solidarity Sundays: Sweet Relief Project
Amount: $1,500
Collective members: Solidarity Sundays has designated two contact people for this project: Mani and Sunshine. There are over a dozen collective members who have voted to delegate the task of making this application who wish to keep their names private.
Location: Kelowna BC tent city
Description of project from the application:
Solidarity Sundays’ goals are twofold: First, to further help address the immediate material needs of our unhoused neighbours and other marginalized people by expanding our mutual aid efforts to create larger and more resilient networks of care and support.
Second, to advocate for and see the realization of transformative policies that address the root causes of societal issues such as houselessness, the toxic drug crisis, stigma, mistreatment by city officials and law enforcement, food insecurity, limited access to healthcare and other services, and more.”
Solidarity Sundays is seeking funding to expand our distribution offerings to include items to cool off our unhoused neighbours during the Summer months. The folks at Tent City Whom we service are already requesting ice-cream and frozen treats which we have provided on occasion in the past, and it’s currently only April.
Offering ice-cream and frozen ice-tea drinks in sufficient quantities for everyone sheltering there, which we have done in the past, 
comes at a considerable cost. Along with our weekly distribution of burritos, harm-reduction supplies, medical/hygiene supplies, and water bottles, we are hoping to add four 4L ice-cream pails and 160 frozen ice-tea/lemonades to our list, weekly.
We are planning to hand out as many other heat/sun-mitigation items as possible along-side the rest of our distribution this summer, such as individual packets of sunscreen and aloe vera, and items to provide shade (hats, umbrellas, etc).
Solidarity Sundays has established a robust network of support from within its own community and is funded entirely by community donations. Although there will be no other organizations or groups aiding us in specifically accomplishing our Sweet Relief project, there are dozens of individuals and several established community organizations who support us on a weekly basis. Though some wish to remain anonymous, some organizations that aid us publicly are Anarchy Coffee Roasters, Okanagan Freak Alliance, local trans punk band Svengali, and Vegilante, to name a few
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Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Recipient:
Victoria Disability Arts Collective: Disability Pride and Radical Self and Community Care Coloring Book and Launch Event
Amount: $1,500
Collective members: Emma Levins, Julia Denley, Kaia Baker, Adrean Meuser, Emma Jory, AJ Wasserman
Location: The free to attend launch event will take place at the Camas Bookstore at a date to be decided.
Description of project from the application:
Overview: Create a coloring book with art from local disabled artists with the theme of disability pride and radical self/community care. Each artist includes a bio, and receives an honorarium. This coloring book will be widely accessible and will serve as an educational/destigmatizing tool.
We will also be having a free to attend launch event where artists can speak about their work. The book will be sold by donation and money made from the project will go back into providing services for this community. This serves as a platform for skill-sharing as artists can share their skills and perspectives with the broader community, fostering appreciation for diverse talents.
Additionally, the free launch event provides a space to learn about radical self and community care. Through artist talks and community discussions about these topics, attendees can engage in critical dialogue, learn from experiences, and deepen their understanding of disability issues.
The book represents an activist art and radical media project. By showcasing artwork that celebrates disability pride and challenges societal norms, the book will provoke thought, inspire action, and promote social change.
Furthermore, the free launch event serves as a platform for amplifying activist voices and promoting radical media projects. By featuring disabled artists speaking about their work and experiences, the event highlights the power of art as a tool for advocacy and empowerment
Our project goals are to: uplift disabled artists’ work and voices, create community, and to create a sense of pride within the disability community. We will be uplifting disabled artists’ workand voices by showcasing various disabled artists’ work in our colouring book, and by inviting disabled artists to speak at our launch event about their work.
We will create community by bringing folks together at our launch event to talk about disability and art, and by having our colouring book available to a wide community of people. We hope to contribute to increasing the sense of pride in the disability community by showcasing art that celebrates disability.
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Camas Books & Infoshop Mutual Aid Microgrants Recipient:
Stop the Stack YYC: Calgary Remand Centre Activation And Community Engagement
Amount: $1,500
Collective members: Kara Bullock, Melissa Kusmack, Taylor McNallie, Nina Morris, Adora Nwofor, Allison Prime, Sarah, TayaWood, Grim
Location: Moh’kins’tsis (so-called Calgary) at the northwest Calgary Remand Centre
Description of project from the application:
Our focus is on prison abolition and prisoner support projects, primarily, providing community support at the Calgary Remand Centre. Our intent is to attend Calgary Remand Centre weekly during predetermined intake and release times holding actions that educate and disrupt while increasing public awareness.
Similarly to our actions taken while one of our collective, Taylor McNallie, was in weekend jail, we will take back space; filling the visitor parking, being loud, offering support to family/friends of those jailed in the form of pamphlets and conversation surrounding knowing your rights, practicing abolition and how the prisons system is intentionally designed to isolate- both physically and mentally.
During our past weekend activism at the Calgary Remand Centre we recognized the purposeful remoteness and inaccessibility of the location, the positive reactions and conversations we had with family/friends of prisoners surrounding the awareness we were bringing and the effect that providing food, water, cigarettes and bus tickets to those being released or visiting had in cracking the “unapproachable” prison facade.
Folks entering the prison system have their rights as citizens removed by the system and represent one of the most marginalized groups in society. Our primary goal is to center their needs by developing connections,hope, care and support while including them within our activism- recognizing that activism often excludes those who are unhoused or imprisoned. We want to create relationships with those entering and/or exiting the weekend jail program in order to break down the social and emotional isolation the prison system purposely creates.
Stop the Stack evolved out of a need to provide support to Taylor McNallie and Adora Nwofor – Black activists residing in Moh’kins’tsis who are and were facing stacked charges related to their activism.
Taylor has received 17 criminal charges ince2020 due to her activism, as well as facing 3 lawsuits after being sued by members of the Calgary Police Service for speaking out their violence.
Adora has faced 3 criminal charges, as well as a “hate crime” that was withdrawn two weeks later due to “clerical error.” All charges against Adora have now been dropped but the psychological, emotional and reputational tolls of those charges and the arrest remains. Taylor and Adora continue to be centred within and involved without activism as their experience contributes to how we approach and provide support for those experiencing imprisonment.
Stop the Stack is also involved with Walls Down Collective with many members being part of each group. Walls Down Collective hasdeep relationships with many unhoused folks who are disproportionately represented within the Calgary Remand Centre,as well as members with lived experience of being unhoused, police violence and housing insecurity.
Walls Down Collective provides weekly pop-up in downtown Moh’kins’tsis which includes food, water, first aid, harm reduction and support and would also be part of Stop The Stack occupying space for weekend jail intakes and releases at the Calgary Remand Centre.
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Community Collaboration with QVCC Garden’s Coordinator: The People’s Apothecary
Working in conjunction with the Quadra Village Community Centre Community Gardens Coordinator, Camas Books & Infoshop is grateful to receive a Growing in the City grant from the City of Victoria to help maintain the People’s Apothecary.
The People’s Apothecary is a herbal commons; it is a living, changing, alternative to the dominant ways our lives are organized in a colonial state capitalist society. The Garden aims to create, strengthen and connect alternatives to the exploitative systems where we can remember how our ancestors would have lived: self-reliance, relationships with nature, and community resilience through healing herbs, gardening, and sharing space together.
This project was facilitated by the Green Tongue Collective on the grounds of what is now the former Vancouver Island School of Art building at 2549 Quadra St. This project relies on ongoing community mobilization for ongoing maintenance and development. The garden has hosted a diverse series of workshops, skill-shares and learning opportunities. All herbs grown in the space are available to use by members of the community.
The project is community-based and includes work parties, social events, skill-shares and other happenings exploring permaculture and herbalism as practical skills, artistic expressions and methods of alternative community building.
Anyone interested in volunteering at the People’s Apothecary should reach out to Garden Coordinator Jarret: gardens@quadravillagecc.com.
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