October 2023 CD Practitioner Gathering Harvest - CDLI
On Wednesday, October 11th we hosted our tenth gathering for community development practitioners of 2023.
We had four conversations with notes captured on each. See our shared harvest here or in the slides below.
In the share back participants identified key take away/points of reflection that came from these conversations:
Room 1: What does meaningful engagement with families look like in our current context?
Value was found in having such diverse set of organizations in one conversation. Different perspectives on the same or similar issues led to generative conversation full of ideas and support for one another.
When engaging families it is important to demonstrate the benefits that may happen for the entire family to help people see where they should best spend their time.
Importance of wrap around approach so that families can more easily access all events, supports, meetings, etc. Wrap around looks like offering child minding, having food available, understanding that if you want families to participate offering these things enables that.
Room 3: How to support food insecurity and basic needs at a community level?
Root cause of food insecurity and rise of basic need referrals - Financial Empowerment needed;
Wage gap is widening; currently the minimum wage is at $15, should be $22.40 based on the cost of living; *see CDLI note, updated November 2023 to Enough for All, Alberta Living Wage Network & Vibrant Communities Calgary Living Wage calculation of $23/hr)
Government, Non-Profit and Corporations need to identify and address predatory behaviors that harm folks;
Community advocacy and policy changes are paramount to reduce food insecurity issue.
The call to action was shared: emailing, mailing, calling and communicating the changes you see as necessary to your MLA, City Councilors, and other leaders.
Room 6: Improving safety in communities through collaboration.
There is a loss of trust between neighbors - possible link to generational differences was cited.
Women feel safe in women's only spaces. Lack of these spaces around the city.
Safety perceptions for everyone are different - collaboration and relationships can help to bring light to broader experiences of safety.
How can spaces like the C-Train which haven’t traditionally been seen as community be recognized as such?
Room 7: How to create action based on perpetual/ongoing research and outreach work?
Breaking down barriers between organizations can be helpful to move past own stalls but how to move those gatherings that currently happen into action?
How do we keep folks engaged, not burnt out in this constant state of not seeing change/needing to advocate?
*Note that in November the COP will be taking a slightly different format with a guest co-host. Your experience in the gathering will be very similar to what you experience currently. The only change will be that the co-host will provide the discussion topics for the rooms. Join in November to try this format with us and contribute to conversation on “When EDI and service design collide.” which was Denyelle Fraser’s session topic at Mini Summit 2023.