Gillian Maxwell
I am committed to raising consciousness individually and collectively to transform our world.
"Fear not the strangeness you feel. The future must enter you
long before it happens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
VISION
My vision is of a world where everyone and everything is greeted with the utmost love and respect. Love empowers the world as a result of consciousness being elevated, individually and collectively. After all, the state of the world is everyone’s business.
GETTING THERE
I am observing more and more my own inclination and enthusiasm to pay attention to my thoughts and actions and notice their impact. I feel more awake and alert and am motivated to take responsibility for myself in order to be in the flow of what I describe as loving presence. I notice quickly when I am not there, and am practicing how to move back to it gracefully.
I see others having their own realisations and acting with integrity. I encourage and inspire you to become powerful leaders in your own life by taking actions that reflect your unique gift. We all have one; it is through working together that the things that need to change will happen. When we are in community, joining and sharing ideas, dreams and energies in creative, original and unique ways, anything is possible. With this intention we will make the vision a reality.
LEARN MORE
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, I am a founder and executive member of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition (CDPC), and focus my attention on community engagement, strategic planning and fund development. My training is in mediation and negotiation, and I am well known in British Columbia as the host and facilitator of a number of public forums at Simon Fraser University’s Wosk Centre for Dialogue, as well as a speaker on harm reduction initiatives at international conferences in the U.S. and Europe.
I have been a member of the Vancouver Police Board and a Trustee of AIDS Vancouver, and during the 2010 Winter Olympics brought SafeGames2010, a large-scale harm reduction initiative, to Vancouver’s Olympic celebrations.
I am currently a member of the Advisory Board of MAPS Canada (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), and a proud recipient of the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
For several years, I served as the project director of Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug Use (KDO), a community-based coalition organising dialogues on problematic substance use to educate the public and inform public policy in Vancouver, and was the spokesperson for the Campaign for Community Safety to advocate for the permanent status of INSITE, the internationally recognised supervised injection facility in Vancouver.
A long-time resident of Strathcona, I live happily with my beloved husband, Richard, and our darling dog, Brandy, and am the proud step-mother of two grown children.
