People are a foundational resource required in sustaining community-based change, and yet we hear time and time again how under-resourced community caretakers are. Funding models are failing the people leading community change efforts, leaving community caretakers to feel under-resourced, overextended and exhausted. Our current systems are failing these workers, and support structures are not in place to protect their well-being, but what if we could change that?
In this webinar, Caring for Community Caretakers Across Canada, we’ll explore the transformative power of community care initiatives that center love, compassion, and well-being as essential parts of equity-centred systems change efforts.
Our panelists represent grassroots, research, and practice-based approaches to community care:
FireLoch’s Care for Caretakers Fellowship supports volunteers through reflection and rest.
Edmonton-based Community of Care for BIPOC Equity Practitioners, which embeds care and relational accountability in equity and reconciliation work.
They’ll share how grassroots, community-led acts of care can spark systemic shifts in how we care for the people essential in our systems change efforts, and the shifts required by policymakers, philanthropists and funders to recognize and value care work as essential work. We’ll also discuss how we can better sustain the well-being of those at the heart of community transformation.
Together we will explore:
What it means to embed care, compassion, and love into our community and organizational practices.
The role of rest, reflection, collective responsibility, and personal development opportunities in sustaining caretakers.
How grassroots care initiatives can become evidence for broader systems change.
Strategies to ensure care-based work, including the people doing it, are adequately valued, funded, and supported.
This webinar invites equity practitioners, community organizers, and changemakers to reflect on the ways they care for the caretakers leading their change efforts and reimagine new ways to sustain their efforts while advocating for broader policy- and funding-level reform.
Anjum Chagpar. Co-Founder, Good Futures Collective
Rochelle Ignacio. Director, Equity, Anti-Racism and Reconciliation, Tamarack Institute
Since 2021, Rochelle has led Tamarack Institute’s inaugural Equity, Anti-Racism and Reconciliation team and spearheaded Seeds of Transformation — a loving framework for equity, belonging, and reconciliation. Beyond consulting, she advances Black mobility and belonging through economic development, arts and culture production, and board leadership in Alberta.