August 2022 CD Practitioner Gathering Harvest

On Wednesday, August 10th we convened as community development practitioners once again for our monthly peer-based conversations.

You can access the full notes here, or flip through the note taking slides below!

We had two breakout rooms have conversations, and the highlights below were gathered from the group debrief.

How do we centre community voices in our community efforts?

• Meet people where they are at! The media/platforms, their preference for communication (e.g. drawing instead of writing)

• OCAP (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) important to follow with information sharing and use

• Funding changes from new legislation is changing who qualifies for grants in a good way!

• Co-design is the way to approach things, but even before that must take time to evaluate how we build trust and with who

• Social movements have been doing a lot during COVID, and big organizations/non-profits have not yet followed suit even if they are talking like it

How to operationalize Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility in our everyday practices?

• We have to start with our own self-awareness and be aware of our own individual biases. Then we should listen to what others are asking for.

• It is encouraging to note the changes to practices that have been happening over time, so make time to look back and check in

• Still a lot of challenges when it comes to equitable grants, especially government grants that have a lot of bureaucracy and continue to not be accessible

Shout out to Darren for his great success with a recent community event that brought together many different people and groups within a community to reclaim public space and create some vibrancy! Alexandra also celebrated some great connections and rejuvenation from community stampede gatherings!