The Latest

The Importance of Connecting Older Persons to Community

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.

Read More

Guelph's Community Plan Wins IAP2 Canada's Project of the Year

The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Canada Core Values Awards help to raise the bar in the field of public engagement through friendly competition to encourage new approaches and innovative uses of existing ones.

Read More

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Tina Turner is well known for delivering the powerful song What’s Love Got to Do With it? That song was rolling around in my head after a recent webinar call with John Kania about the launch of the Collective Change Lab.

Read More

10 Ways to Rekindle Democracy

In a recent webinar discussion hosted by Tamarack, Cormac Russell talked about his new book Rekindling Democracy: A Professional's Guide to Working in Citizen Space. Cormac, who describes himself as an itinerant storyteller, filled the book with stories from his travels while asking the question what these stories might call forth from us. His overarching thesis is that citizens must be at the center of any authentic democratic response to the challenges we face.

Read More

Disaster Recovery the Pandemic Way

The pandemic has affected our jobs, families, and communities. We now see organizations and groups looking for the right way to move into the recovery phase of the pandemic. Since these are unprecedented times, there are no templates or formulas on how we can work through recovery. I have come across three publications that outline a path to recovery in which community is put at the center.

Read More

Creating a Remote Built Environment Learning Academy

Open Architecture Collaborative Canada (OACC), is a community of socially-minded designers, architects, planners, creators, and innovators who strive to create equitable and mutually beneficial relationships between communities’ quality of life and their built environment. 

Read More