Miriam:

So how do you assess the viability of something like, “Oh, we’re going to make a feature film. Alright let’s do it. We have 3 months.”

Marlo:

Right, right, right. Yeah, I don't know, I think it’s a great question. I mean, I would love to have a facilitator come in, for example, and do kind of interest inventory with the team and all of these creative project and possibilities.

I find that unfortunately given my role and constraints I have. Actually, that’s another constraint. It’s just structurally that we’re not necessarily suited to promote that on a regular basis because we’ve got our nose in so many other places and we were pulled down to other projects and just the day-to-day logistics of running the organization. So I guess a way around that would be to bring someone in who can free us up to do that kind of thinking and help us focus on certain projects and then help us to evaluate them.

Miriam

So in a way, like capacity building such as having someone come in to do it, “Okay, what can you do?”

Marlo: Yeah.

Miriam: What can you do?

Marlo: Yeah.

Miriam: Okay. How long would it take you to do that?

Marlo: Right.

Miriam: How much would it cost?

Marlo: Yeah.

Miriam:

Alright, that’s the lesson plan. Let’s put that in our notes as we weigh the potential thing that maybe you guys can do.

Marlo:

Exactly. Exactly because I find in my supervision sessions with staff, those things come up and it’s a balancing act because I want to cultivate that type of interest and that passion, and at the same time, it’s like well,they're already running a deficit in that program. What does it mean to stretch outside of that? So it’s been kind of…what do you call it - risk assessment and taking that into account and also wanting to encourage growth.

So for example concrete is that a couple of years ago, we started doing more hip-hop stuff and at Jeunnesse Deux Mille, and I came in, and there wasn’t enough place where you could record, and yes, we were running a deficit in the program but I thought, "You know what? If you build it, they will come." So we started investing money in a small studio space, in the software and doing that, and sure enough, the funding has come.
We're now at a place where we're accessing more state of the art media and we’re able to offer that to youth and to other people in the community, which is really cool.