Richmond, BC / 24 Oct. 2011) Community Living BC, a provincial crown agency mandated under the Community Living Authority Act to deliver support and services to adults with developmental disabilities, recently launched a book titled “ The Power of Knowing Each Other : Stories about informal safeguards told by BC families”.
The event was held last Sunday, Oct. 23, 2011 at the Richmond Arts Centre Performance Hall. The book contains 12 stories about the creative and unique connections families have built and nurtured with their family members who live with a developmental disability. The personal stories in the book include one about Raffi Francisco, who was present during the event to sign copies of the book.
To help launch the book, Maria and GG Francisco, parents of Raffi , called on family and friends to organize a mini-presentation that led to a duo-piano concert by renowned pianists Sam Sam Lam and Victoria Francisco ( Raffi ’s aunt) who pleased the crowd with their rendition of compositions by Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Johann Strauss and Tchaikovsky. The two pianists, who are highly regarded as Filipino musical ambassadors of goodwill, also played some popular compositions of Filipino composer Ryan Cayabyab. Fazioli partly sponsored the event by providing two Fazioli pianos.
The book will be available in the public libraries in BC. (photo and story by WS Victoria )
