Hey Neighbour! Social connectedness program expands
In 2018, with support from a PlanH grant, the City of Vancouver piloted the Hey Neighbour! initiative to explore how resident-led leadership might create more socially-connected buildings.
“It’s not a numbers game”: Getting to the heart of equitable engagement with Jessica Delaney of Delaney + Associates
Canadian communities are now more than ever expecting to be part of creating and evaluating public decisions.
Building connection to build capacity: Mid-Island Métis Nation
Nine years ago, the Mid-Island Métis Nation (MIMN) could not pay rent, let alone develop and implement programs to tackle systemic issues in community health.
Doing the right thing: lessons learned from IAP2
A few weeks ago, our Communications Manager Johanna and I had the good fortune of attending a public participation (P2) training put on by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). We met dozens of P2 and community engagement professionals from around Canada advocating for public input in a variety of sectors and projects. Community engagement is a pillar of Healthy Communities work, reinforcing a ‘whole of community’ approach involving individuals, communities, governments, and other entities in policy and decision making.
Facing uncertainty with love and kindness
Most days at BC Healthy Communities I feel two things: fortunate and conflicted. I feel fortunate because my workplace is welcoming and safe and my coworkers are bright, caring and compassionate. I also feel fortunate because I get to work on projects that attempt to address complex social matters, which I find interesting and important. But I’m conflicted because there are days where I feel as though the work I do, engaging and researching with communities, might be more effectively done by someone who is actually experiencing the challenges and successes we as an organization try to understand and support.
Five take-home messages from B.C.’s first Active Transportation Summit
We were thrilled to visit New Westminster to attend B.C.’s first Active Transportation Summit in June 2019. The two-day summit featured keynote speakers, panel discussions, interactive workshops and presentations focused on expanding our ways of thinking about active transportation and learning from initiatives across B.C. Our summer practicum student, Alexis Erlichman, describes some of her most important takeaways when it comes to creating active transportation for all.