The Latest

Knowing Where You've Been to Know Where You're Headed

I was reading an article in the Philanthropist, How social service agencies can help build a collaborative and caring economy, where Rob Howarth speaks to the trends of growing economic inequality and geographic segregation in Canadian communities.

If you are like me, I click on the links as I read them. In doing so, I landed on a great website about building community change and building inclusive communities from within: the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership.

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4 Tool Kits To Help Get Your Neighbourhood Strategy Started

Are you looking to get your neighbourhood more engaged with each other? Other individuals across Canada have wanted the same. While this may seem like an intimidating task, it is possible!  Some of the biggest neighbourhood strategies in Canada started with one person and an idea. 

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Our Growing Understanding of Community Well-Being

What is community well-being and how is it improved?  Those curious about this question will find much to engage them in the newly-published Handbook of Community Well-Being Research.  It is the first publication of its kind to bring together foundational and leading-edge research to offer a compendium of knowledge, approaches and insights for improving quality of life in communities of place. 

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Connecting Lakeside: A Deepening Community Initiative

In the spring of 2016, The Regional Municipality of York partnered with Tamarack to launch a Local Deepening Community Initiative called Connecting Lakeside at its Lakeside Residences Building in South Keswick. The conversations hosted as part of the Connecting Lakeside Initiative helped neighbours get to know one another; discover their shared hopes for the building that they call home; and, discover the gifts, knowledge and talents they each have to share.  It also created an opportunity for Region staff and community partners to get to know and work with Lakeside residents to facilitate linkages with the broader community, and to support resident-led projects that have made the building an even better place to live. 

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Historical Moment for Unanimously Endorsed Neighbourhood Strategy

It's official. The City Council of Kitchener, Ontario unanimously endorsed an inspiring new neighbourhood strategy that allows residents to take the lead.

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If you want to build community, start where the people are

A fundamental principle of community organizing is to start where the people are. The closer you engage people to where they live, the more likely they are to get involved. You should be able to get successively larger turnouts for gatherings at the neighborhood, city, state and national levels, but the percentage of the population engaged will most likely be the highest at the street, block, building or floor level.

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