Who Is Christine Estima?
Being half Portuguese and half Lebanese, I began my diasporic journey of petulance and precociousness in the suburbs of Montreal and Toronto. I thusly figured I’d turn out to be a nun, or an explorer.
A few years at a Catholic school cured me of the first disease.
As a playwright, novelist, actress, and arts journalist (sleeping in some forgotten corner of a European railway station), my writing has appeared in Bitch Magazine, CBC, The National Post, NOW Magazine, Matrix Magazine, Exclaim!, Chart Magazine, The Malahat Review, Descant Literary Journal, Room Magazine, UKULA, CanPlay, The Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, The Big Picture, TheGate.ca, TorontoPlus.ca, Canadian Theatre Review, the travel anthology Navigating Customs: A Tendril Anthology (Cumulus Press), and the literary anthology ToK: Writing the New Toronto.
Playwrighting credits include, Vignettes In The Dark (2004, Toronto Fringe Festival), The Spadina Monologues (2005, The New Ideas Festival, Alumnae Theatre; 2007, Theatre Passe Muraille backspace, 2010 Foundry Theatre), and The Central Line (2009, International Women Playwrights Conference, Mumbai).
I also hold a Master of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from York Univeristy. My award-nominated thesis explores narratives of gendered-ethnicities on the Toronto stage, post 9/11.
Try saying that five times, really fast.
Why should War Child Canada choose you to be their social-media-youth-guru?
I have been operating my own lifestyle blog for over five years and have garnered a dedicated readership across Canada, USA, the United Kingdom, Europe, India, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, and more. I have countless clients (ranging from NGOs, not-for-profit organizations, and multi-conglomerate corporations) who regularly request feature coverage on my blog. It attracts approximately 1,500 unique hits a week, which is quite respectable for a personal blog.
Furthermore, I am well immersed in all areas of social media, running my own Twitter (my Twitter following is approximately 1,500 and grows daily), Facebook (1,600 friends & connections), YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, LinkedIn, TwitPic, Plixi, and many other social media networking profiles.
During my War Child Challenge campaign, I garnered a lot of attention from Toronto’s social media circles! Some of Toronto’s biggest bloggers profiled my campaign, including Casie Stewart (former MTV/MuchMusic social media specialist and current Virgin American Agent Provocateur), Sean Ward (infamous daily vlogger and social media all-star), and Valerie Stachurski (founder of I’m Charming You)
Even the CEO of Gap Adventures, Bruce Poon Tip, took notice of my War Child Campaign and tweeted his support of my War Child short film!
Also, local student newspaper The Sheridan Sun took notice of my War Child campaign. They interviewed me and printed an entire profile of my cause!
Passionate about Politics!
As a feminist/vegetarian/pacifist/bookworm/backpacker/rabble-rouser, I cannot wear white without spilling something on it, but you’ll still find me, most likely, in the fridge at 4am.
Whether it’s encouraging arts workers and people in the artistic community to vote in municipal elections…
…or participating in protests to fight injustices occurring at home and abroad…
…I am passionate about politics and the issues affecting Canadian youth. Even my Masters Degree explored issues of representation concerning gender and ethnicity in Toronto in a post-911 context. Everything I do is informed by my wish for more people realize they have a voice!
I’ve traveled the world, seen so many things, met so many people, and experienced so much that has pushed me out of my comfort zone . . . and it’s made me a stronger and wiser person today.
I’ve braved La Tomatina festival in Spain, rode atop elephants and camels in India, starred in a reality TV show in the Dominican Republic, run through the Lavender fields in the south of France, dodged bullets in Lebanon, kayaked in Croatia, climbed mountains in Brazil, thrown snowballs in Kiev, cycled across Ireland, stepped out of the way of tanks in Sarajevo and Kosovo, and summoned the courage to go zip-lining, bungee-jumping, white-water rafting, and mountain biking in Whistler!
Celebrity Endorsements?
. . . . or I’ll shoplift the pootie.
Yo Canada, I’m really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but Christine had the best War Child campaign of all time.
Err . . . yeah.
Enough of the yak-yak-yakking and make with the happy-fun-time video!
(Directed by Victoria Murdoch, music by Scott Joplin “The Entertainer,” 1905, public domain, no rights reserved)
Wrap it up
I’m passionate about the issues, I know how to get people’s attention in a fun and engaging way, but most of all, I’m a hard worker. Not only will I work hard for War Child Canada, I will enjoy every single nanosecond of it!
A girnormous THANK YOU to everyone who has voted/commented/ReTweeted/Facebook’d/emailed my campaign around the world! This campaign has been a lot of hard work, but I’ve Givin’r with a Fist Pump! And I wouldn’t change a thing!
Now to end off with an inspirational quote . . .
FANKS EVERYONE!
