There is some amazing work that is being done in neighbourhoods all across Canada. In this article, we wanted to highlight some of the inspiring stories about work that happened in 2017, and provide resources to fuel your own neighbourhood initiative.
1. Read about the City of Victoria’s Building Resilient Neighbourhoods Project – A report on four years of learning.
2. Read about York Region’s Connecting Lakeside Deepening Community Initiative, gathering neighbours to get to know one another, sharing hopes and discovering their gifts in a social housing context.
3. Read more about engaging people where they live, in Jim Diers' article, If you want to build community, start where the people are.
4. Listen to Kitchener’s Neighbourhood Strategy to learn about how the city started their first neighbourhood strategy and how they will support resident-led initiatives into the future.
5. Listen to Montreal's Centre Sud Nourishing Neighbourhood to learn about a central-Montreal working class neighbourhood that collectively created a strategy for addressing food security issues using a unique combination of creative and logical solutions.
6. Listen to Donna Thompson as she talks about advocating with empathy.
7. Listen to a conversation about the changing nature of technology and the impact on ourselves, our families and movements.
8. Read about the Halo Project from Milton Friesen as he talks about understanding how, and in what ways, our community contributions add up to make a real difference for the common good.
9. Read about Micheal McAfee’s Theory of Aligned Contribution explaining the conditions needed to bridge the gap between desired results and current reality in complex adaptive systems.
10. Listen to John McKnight present the principles of Asset-Based Community Development, a paradigm shift that will help you work and interact with people in a way that is empowering for neighbourhood residents.
