Employ To Empower is is a local, grassroots charity that empowers people with work and social barriers through entrepreneurship in one of Canada’s poorest postal codes.
In 2020, we secured funding to document the story behind Employ To Empower though our lens. It will be touring film festivals in 2022-23.
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) community is full of strength and resilience. Christina Wong, one of the youngest Executive Directors in the DTES, left her corporate job to start a charity called Employ To Empower (ETE) to create change by providing long term support to residents through entrepreneurship. ETE empowers the residents to create a ripple effect of change in the community.
"Without a doubt, we’ d recommend Cillema in a heartbeat. Amy and Alex are the epitome of top talent for photography and cinematography. They captured the strength and resilience of emerging entrepreneurs, thus challenging the stigmas around the DTES community. We at Employ to Empower, a local charity, are extremely lucky to have Cillema as our proud cinematography partner. Amy and Alex bring a compassionate, wholehearted approach where they invest time to get to know the organization and the people whom they are filming before they even turn on the camera."
Christina Wong
Executive Director at ETE
