Hi, I’m Dan Ritchie, the newest member of the Cities Deepening Community team. As a Manager of Cities, I will support members who want to develop neighbourhood plans. Joining the Tamarack Institute at the beginning of November has been an exciting experience for me, especially during this period of great uncertainty.
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The pandemic is challenging not only our physical, mental, and economic health but also our social health. Lockdowns have shifted our daily routines and impacted our access to public places. Outdoor gathering spaces like parks and farmers markets are being redesigned to meet new public health guidelines. Indoor gathering spaces like libraries, community centres, and places of worship have closed to help prevent transmission of the virus. And despite our best intentions, Zoom conversations and social media platforms remain poor substitutes for in-person interactions. After months of social distancing, we are realizing how important public spaces are in fostering the social connections that are so vital to our collective wellbeing.
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Have you ever thought about whose role is it to build community? Whose role is it to fix the problems? Is it government, maybe social service programs? Is it groups and associations? Sometimes, I think that communities are looking for a superhero to swoop in and fix all their problems. But this superhero does not exist. What we need is a group of superheroes such as Marvel's Avengers, with each hero bringing their own gift and knowledge, and when its used as a group big changes can happen.
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What does meaningful youth engagement look like? How can we engage youth in community change? What are common youth engagement challenges and how do you overcome them? These are a few of the questions that we asked as we launched Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF), Tamarack’s strategy to enable youth engagement and community change in 13 communities across Canada. Youth leadership and engagement are crucial components of this collective impact strategy and so, CBYF launched a Commitment to Youth Engagement.
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As we have all pivoted and learned to live in a COVID-19 era, the associated need for physical distancing and other monumental behavioural shifts have taken a toll on Canadians’ mental health.
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Humans are social beings and are hardwired to want to be with people. When we are born, we thrive on connections but as we age those connections become harder and harder to keep leading us to be lonely. Loneliness can affect anyone but is more common amongst older persons 65 and older. The 2013 StatsCan study indicates that 1 in 3 individuals over the age of 65 are lonely. Additionally, a 2019 Angus Reid report indicated that those who are 55+ with incomes of less than $50,000 were twice as likely to be both lonely and isolated, and were more than twice as likely to be single and living alone.
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