When I heard of Tamarack’s wish to grow in Quebec from the inside out, I thought this was truly exciting and very promising. So much that I’ve recently joined the team as Consulting Director for Québec to contribute my skills and experience to this work.
Within Tamarack's thriving community of 35 000 learners, about only 1000 live in Quebec. And yet, I feel we have so much to share and learn from each other to advance our work as a connected force for community change.
My own learning journey with Tamarack has spanned over nearly a decade. I have engaged with Tamarack’s tools, learning events, and resources on multiple occasions - first as a community leader, and later as a funder and the lead on the Collective Impact, Experimental Projects and Learning at Centraide of Greater Montreal. These interactions brought inspiration, aha moments, and useful know-how to deepen my community work. In my experience, their common “trademark” was that they were relevant, robust, well-grounded in both theory and practice and, perhaps most importantly, evolving. I highly value that Tamarack’s work is continuously informed by communities’ experiences.
A milestone for me was Neighbourhoods: The Heart of Community- Mobilizing for impact, the first Tamarack bilingual learning event held in Montreal in 2017. As Director of the Collective Impact Project at the time, I partnered Centraide with Tamarack to showcase the effervescence of neighbourhood action at its best in the city, while also learning from Kahnawà:ke, other municipalities in Quebec, and across Canada.
Today, I am convinced that Tamarack holds a unique position and valuable assets - both as a learning center and network of Vibrant Communities- to serve as a bridge between francophone and anglophone experiences. As a francophone who is passionate about community development, I firmly believe that we can accelerate our effectiveness by learning from one another, thus increasing our social impact and even inspiring others beyond our borders.
Will you join me in imagining how our community of learners could grow and flourish in Québec?
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