Unity and Resilience Never Mattered More
It's weeks before Christmas. Uptown Manhattan, NYC. I'm in a room full of frighteningly extraordinary people: religious leaders who practise the art of disaster chaplaincy.
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It's weeks before Christmas. Uptown Manhattan, NYC. I'm in a room full of frighteningly extraordinary people: religious leaders who practise the art of disaster chaplaincy.
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“Ask any Canadian what “care” means and you will get rapid-fire answers that include words like kindness, love, concern, compassion and attentiveness. We know with inner certainty what it feels like to be cared for. But ask if these qualities come to mind when thinking about experiences in the health care system and you might get a blank stare or even a smirk”. - Vickie Cammack and Donna Thomson.
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What better time to thank the volunteers that give their time and skills to neighbourhood projects than National Volunteer Week April 15-21, 2018? This year’s theme, “Celebrating the Value of Volunteering – building confidence, competence, connections and community”, is fitting as volunteers are integral to the work of Cities Deepening Community members as they utilize the the power of citizens to strengthen communities and neighbourhoods and develop strategies.
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I was speaking with Howard Lawrence from Abundant Community Edmonton about their work around neighbourhood development and we got talking about making a difference in our community and how do we know if anyone is better off because of the changes/activities that have been implemented. How do we measure change in our neighbourhood work? Howard told me about a tool called the Sense of Community Index that is used in the social science area to determine sense of community.
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The Toronto Foundation, a community foundation focused on pooling philanthropic resources to maximize community impact, released their 2017/18 vital signs report this month. This year’s report, Towards a More Just City, uses an equity lens to reveal the ways that quality of life can be impacted by neighbourhood, income, race, immigration status, gender, sexual identity and age in Toronto. The Toronto Foundation hopes that the equity lens, and the concerns that it highlights, provide a useful roadmap for government, the philanthropic sector, private sector and individual citizens to remove systemic barriers facing some populations in Toronto from full participation in the city.
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Asset Based Community Development (ABCD): Looking Back to Look Forward - In conversation with John McKnight about the intellectual and practical heritage of ABCD and its place in the world today, by Cormac Russell, tells the story behind ABCD. When I say "behind", I mean it provides us an intimate reflection on the people that most influenced John and the ground-breaking ideas that formed his thinking.
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