The Latest

Neighbours Taking a Strengths-Based Approach to Increase Emotional Well-Being in Their Community

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The Power of Connection and Collaboration: Reflections from Celebrating Neighbours – Measuring the Impact of ABCD

Last month, the Deepening Community team hosted Tamarack's first in-person event in over two years. This blog post is a reflection of the most significant learning I took away from the event. 

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The Gifts of Strangers: Understanding the Benefits of Diversity

One argument for diversity is that it ensures participation and creates the power of being heard. It is expressed by the popular maxim, “Nothing about us without us.” Implicit in this idea is the concept that those outside must come inside in order to ensure that their self-interest is served.

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A Happy Birthday Note to John McKnight

John, we have a thousand memories of you. Tamarack is because of you. You influenced how we are working to end poverty by embedding ABCD into one of the 5 core practices in our approach. 

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How my service club can put youth at the center of our work

As a long-time volunteer with my local Optimist Club, I have been trying to find out how we can shift the way we include more voices in deciding our programing. On Dec 3^rd 2020, I attended a workshop that was hosted by the Cities Deepening Community team at Tamarack Institute called A Professional’s Guide to Working with Young People in Citizen Space. This workshop was facilitated by Cormac Russell and used Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) as a way to put youth at the centre of our work. I went to this workshop with the perspective of an elected President of our local Optimist Club. We work closely with youth in our community and try to build events and donate to existing sports/service clubs that are for the youth in Baden.

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Making the Shift to Citizen-centered Community Development Approaches

On December 2^nd, Cormac Russell returned to Tamarack to lead an interactive online learning experience that explored how professionals and organizations can work in citizen space. A familiar voice around Tamarack, Cormac is Managing Director of Nurture Development, a faculty member of the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Institute and an internationally-renowned thought leader, trainer and speaker. The Asset-Based Community Development Virtual Workshop led participants through a journey to reflect upon and discover ways we can shift to citizen-centred community development approaches from top-down institution-centered ones.

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