After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud

Valentina is the Observer Media Group's social media director. She is a multimedia and multiplatform journalist from Venezuela, proficient in both long-form and 140-character pieces. She has eight years of work experience in Venezuela, covering national, international and arts and culture information for different media outlets and different platforms. She has a master's degree in journalism from the University of British Columbia. Follow her Vancouver-based journalism.

Humpback whale greets kayaker off Kits beach

The video has more than 2,000 likes on Instagram. Local and national media outlets have written about it. Social media user @johnnyvanuck never thought a regular afternoon in the beach would put him...

How to make a movie with a little help from your friends

About two years ago, Ross Munro and his wife María were juggling their work-schedules, their shooting-schedule and their crew’s schedules in order to complete the final scenes of A Legacy of Whining...
Mohamed Fahmy at UBC

Fahmy: We needed Harper to call the President of Egypt

Mohamed Fahmy continues to make headlines. This week, the Canadian journalist was awarded with the Freedom to Read award from the Writers' Union of Canada.   Less than a month ago, his Fahmy...

B.C. First Nations artist inspires unique, eco-conscious fashion show

Over the course of an artistic career spanning 40 years, Haida artist Reg Davidson has carved masks and sculptures, painted drums, produced gold jewelry, and even sewed traditional regalia. If there...

At Science of Cocktails, partygoers enjoy oddball alcoholic drinks for a good cause

Alcohol combined with educational games makes for a party like no other. At Science of Cocktails, more than thousand people packed into the TELUS World of Science for an evening of drinking,...

Jody Wilson-Raybould talks about gender equality and reconciliation during Vancouver visit

The Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada gave her first official speech after being elected in Vancouver

Climate activists lock themselves to door of Vancouver National Energy Board office

Some 25 activists led by 350Vancouver marched through the downtown core up to the regional office of the National Energy Board, where they presented a “People’s Injunction” notice. The...

Two thousand backpacks for Syrian and Canadian children

Syrian refugee children and low-income Canadian children living in the Lower Mainland will be fully equipped for the 2016 school year. At least that’s Jenny Kwan’s holiday wish. The Immigration,...

More Canadians in need of food banks: report

The HungerCount is out and its numbers show that more and more people are in need of food banks. According to the 2015 report released by Food Banks Canada [FBC], over 850,000 Canadians, or 2.3 per...