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

Posted by Connor Judge on July 20, 2022

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

Posted by John McKnight on July 20, 2022

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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Moving From Disconnect to Reconnect

Posted by Elle Richards on September 3, 2021

We are at a pivotal time where the world is carefully and optimistically opening up, and though we may still be in the midst of the ongoing ebb and flow of the pandemic with continued social distance measures, this does not mean we cannot be socially connected. Many of us however have been disconnected and isolated, and though the trend was being experienced long before the pandemic, the pandemic has created and exacerbated the problem.

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How might we reconnect with community post-COVID?

Posted by Dan Ritchie on August 23, 2021

“While we are connected in new ways electronically, I think that sometimes comes at the expense of personal connection and that is a big challenge” – Dr. Trevor Hancock

5 years ago, the Tamarack Institute wrote about a film crew seeking to examine community connectedness and the important role it plays in our lives, health, and well-being. With contributions from Tamarack’s Co-CEO Paul Born and Dr. Trevor Hancock, this award-winning documentary, “The Great Disconnect” was launched. Since its official launch in October 2019, the film has screened across Canada through multiple municipalities, non-profits, educational institutions and NGOs, and has been shown in ten countries across Europe. This film invites reflection on the relationships we have with those around us and raises the question: Is it possible to overcome our modern culture of disconnectedness and rediscover how truly essential we are to one other?

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Youth Loneliness: Is it a youth problem or a community problem?

Posted by Heather Keam on March 31, 2021

Pre-COVID, there was growing evidence that loneliness was becoming a problem across all populations across Canada. It was being recognized as a public health issue.

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Prototyping Community Change through Youth Engagement

Posted by Kimber Kunimoto on November 5, 2020

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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