User:Ytschooly

Matt Hern

Born: 1968, Victoria, BC Resides: East Vancouver, BC

Matt Hern is an activist, organizer, writer and academic who lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters. He directs the Purple Thistle Centre: and founded Car-Free Vancouver Day. His writing has been published on all six continents, translated into many languages and he continues to lecture widely. He holds a PhD in Urban Studies and teaches at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.

Writing / Lecturing Hern has written two books: Field Day: Getting Society Out of School (New Star, 2003) and Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better (New Star, 2007). He has also edited two other books: Deschooling Our Lives (New Star, 1996) and Everywhere All the Time (AK Press, 2008). His forthcoming book (2009) is called Vancouver: Making Something Solid Out of a Liquid City explores a radical participatory urbanism in the context of his home city.

He writes for a wide variety of journals and magazines and is frequently interviewed in major media. Hern lectures worldwide speaking about deschooling, alternative education, sustainable urbanism, safety/security/risk and participatory democracy. More information is available at

Purple Thistle Centre After running a small learning centre just off Commercial Drive, Hern and his partner Selena Couture worked at Windsor House Alternative School, then opened the Purple Thistle Centre in 2001 with seven teenage friends in East Vancouver. The Thistle has since flourished and expanded significantly into a major community centre that is run collectively by a group of youth. Hern acts as a mentor, fundraiser, and organizer who works closely with the collective. See www.purplethistle.ca for more.

Car – Free Festivals In 2005 Hern and Carmen Mills co-founded the Commercial Drive Car-Free Festival. Working with organizers and volunteers the event blew up with 25 000 people converging for an afternoon of music, dancing, politics and general good times in his East Vancouver neighbourhood. In 2006 the Festival drew 50 000 people and making even more explicit a radical politics of ethical sustainability and social ecology, as well as opposition to the Gateway Project. In 2007 the Drive Fest expanded to 2 days with Fests in June and July and continued to draw huge crowds with 35 000 people attending each events. Taking that momentum Hern founded Car- Free Vancouver Day. In 2008 four major Vancouver neighbourhoods participated and 125 000 people crowded the streets to call for a sustainable city with fewer cars and more community. Hern and the Car Free Vancouver Society continue to expand the project with more neighbourhoods expected to join in 2009 and the City now officially exploring ways to shut down major high streets regularly. See Car Free Vancouver:.

Trips/Exchanges Hern runs annual major trips with teenagers – up to 25 teens camping for a month at a time in Montana, Utah, California and elsewhere. In 2002 Hern and a colleague started a Youth Exchange Program between East Vancouver and Fort Good Hope (Radeli Ko) in the Northwest Territories. The project is an annual reciprocal youth exchange bringing together a diverse urban neighbourhood (East Vancouver) and an isolated Dene community of 600 people on the Arctic Circle, 750 miles northwest of Yellowknife, right on the Mackenzie River. The exchanges are also organized explicitly with the goal of getting native and non-native kids together. The central goal of this project is to move past simple tolerance and towards comprehension of each other’s home lives and communities. Recent pictures from participants can be viewed here Fort Good Hope: