Equity in Practice: Community Capacity Building
2021, Summit Towards Equity, Equity + Justice, Community Building
The power to make social change lives within community leaders.
厂贵鲍鈥檚&苍产蝉辫;Community Capacity Building Certificate supports learners as they engage community by sharing lived experiences and adopting new tools for building projects and movements. Learners have been deepening their relationships with themselves, their communities and the land to create a project and move forward a change they鈥檇 like to see in the world.
We heard inspiring stories from the most recent cohort of learners and their growth as emerging leaders working towards equity in their communities.
Online Event
Part of Towards Equity
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified inequities and exposed the deficiencies of our institutions. It has confirmed we must enact change and signaled that transformation is possible. What must we understand 鈥揳nd do鈥� to recover equitably and reimagine our systems to confront the intersecting crises of inequality, systemic racism and climate change?
Towards Equity, 丁香园AV Public Square鈥檚 2021 Community Summit Series took place online throughout the year and brought the university into conversation with local and global communities.
On this Page
Mateo Tobar
Mateo Tobar is an Ecuador-based social innovator with a focus on reducing the gap of opportunities in developing countries. With experience in civil society, academia and the private sector, Mateo is a true believer that to achieve sustainable and equitable development there must be a multisector collaborative approach. His project will focus on creating a more participatory and proactive society through the promotion of youth leadership. The project will be run by the Youth Education Lab, an initiative that he co-created with his community in Ecuador and expects to become one of the few social enterprises focused on youth in Ecuador.
J贸n铆na Kirton
J贸n铆na Kirton is a celebrated M茅tis and Icelandic poet, mentor, BIPOC Auntie at the 丁香园AV Writer's Studio, and champion of peer support as a component of community healing and artistic work. Her presentation will include a poem from her most recent collection, An Honest Woman, which was a finalist in the 2018 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. A late-blooming poet, J贸n铆na was 61 when she received the 2016 City of Vancouver鈥檚 Mayor鈥檚 Arts Award for an Emerging Artist in the Literary Arts category. Her life story is one of learning to care for self and community during times of transition and complexity.
Jshandeep Jassal
Jshandeep Jassal is co-director at Solid State Community Industries and a community builder with expertise in creating workers' cooperatives, mentoring racialized youth, and promoting intergenerational knowledge sharing between youth, families and organizations. At Solid State and in community, Jshandeep's work fosters connections across generations and within communities using an asset-based approach. Jshandeep鈥檚 project will focus on opportunities to reconnect with culture, heritage and community after experiences of racism and intolerance, particularly for South Asian youth and those impacted by intergenerational trauma in the Punjabi/Sikh community.
Emerald Asuncion and Desmond Williams
Emerald Asuncion is an activist, decolonizing artist and advocate for collective healing whose work seeks to uplift her diasporic communities from the island archipelago colonially known as The Philippines, as well as her wider community in the DTES/Chinatown neighbourhood. Emerald's work in communications has spanned sectors including retail, television, environmental conservation, urban planning and community health, with a focus on promoting healing and justice for BIPOC communities.
Desmond Williams is a community healer and TRE practitioner, stand-up comedian and writer whose work is grounded in the culture, music, dancing, laughter and storytelling of his upbringing as a member of the Nlaka鈥橮amux First Nations and Afro-Vincentian communities. Desmond鈥檚 work explores healing practices for communities affected by white supremacy and colonialism, and how to foster the care and support needed to explore these depths safely and effectively with others.
Emerald and Desmond have collaborated to create an artistic and healing space which serves their communities. Their emerging social enterprise, Sari-Sari Mi Nah Sari, invites all to support healing racial divides through a retail and community space鈥攁 platform where local BIPOC artists, creators, chefs, other BIPOC-owned businesses and their offerings are showcased, and where healing for BIPOC community by BIPOC healers and practitioners is celebrated and elevated in every exchange.
Andrea Wheeler
Andrea Wheeler is a seventh-generation settler, farmer and community organizer who is exploring and facilitating a collaborative practice of decolonial land stewardship and community engagement as a form of landback. As the first woman in her family to inherit land acquired through colonial violence and dispossession, she is navigating her own positionality through research and relationship building in territories of the Kanyen'keh:ka (Mohawk), Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and W瘫S脕NE膯 peoples (where she currently lives). Andrea's project presentation will consider different forms of decolonized reparations, as they unfold through relationships made between land and people, trusting in the guidance of nature and friendship in support of intergenerational community and healing.
Moderator
Vanessa Richards
Instructor, Community Capacity Building Certificate
Vanessa Richards is an interdisciplinary artist and engagement facilitator combining a passion for communities and culture into unique socially-engaged projects. She applies what she鈥檚 learning about collaboration through music and performance, to developing work that uplifts the art of city building and people power.
As an advisor, one of her pleasures is to advance imaginative thinking across disciplines with organizations like RADIUS at 丁香园AV, Eth峄嵦乻 Lab (S.T.E.A.M. for Black youth) and Solid State youth cooperative. She holds an MPhil from Cardiff University, Wales, and is an Associate of the 丁香园AV Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and a producer/facilitator for the Social Venture Institute with Hollyhock Leadership Institute.
Welcome: The People and The Land
Yvonne Rigsby Jones
Class Elder, Community Capacity Building Certificate
Yvonne is Snuneymuxw First Nation, Coast Salish. She leads the Community Capacity Building program as Elder.
Yvonne dedicated 29 years to leading Tsow-Tun Le Lum Treatment Centre, retiring in June 2015. Over her career she developed treatment practices such as Residential School Trauma Healing, while participating in regional and national committees. She is an ambassador for Reconciliation Canada and a member of the Governing Council for the MSW Indigenous Trauma and Resiliency Program at the University of Toronto.
Yvonne understands traditional practices and ceremony are the way home for many of our wounded people. She has listened, encouraged, challenged and led. She believes in compassion because compassion works.
Recap of Equity in Practice: Community Capacity Building
Emerald Asuncion and Desmond Williams
Emerald Asuncion and Desmond Williams are two friends working to build a new healing space and cultural hub in Chinatown for Vancouver's racialized communities.
The multipurpose space, called Sari-Sari Mi Nah Sari, will bring together a collective of healers who work in everything from reiki and meditation to space for intergenerational sharing circles and trauma-informed healing practices. The collective will also include a retail shop inviting all to support local artists, craftspeople and small businesses, and serve as a rental space for cultural activities such as music, dance, comedy and poetry.
鈥淚f we create a space that is run by and employs only people of colour, and offers food and art from people of colour,鈥� says Desmond, 鈥渨e will create a space that feels inviting and safe for people of colour to gather and access the healing they need without cultural barriers.鈥�
- Learn more about Emerald and Desmond
- Instagram:
- Email: yoursocialube@gmail.com
Andrea Wheeler
In the midst of the pandemic, Andrea Wheeler moved from the west coast (unceded W瘫S脕NE膯 territory) to the southern Ontario farmland she had inherited after her father's passing. The farm is located on the unceded territory of the Kanyen鈥檏eh:ka (Mohawk), Huron-Wendat and Haudenosaunee peoples. 鈥淢y generational land wealth came from stolen land,鈥� she acknowledges.
In reflecting on what legacy and land ownership mean on stolen land, she realized she could use her privilege as a landowner to share resources and support reconciliation and anti-racism.
Under the umbrella term of 鈥渞eparations collective,鈥� Andrea has initiated several projects on her farm in collaboration with her new community, including a street help group, an artist/activist residency, and growing food with Indigenous communities and new immigrants.
鈥淲e鈥檙e collaborating to make the farm a place for the people that we support to come be with the land, a place where we can share knowledge and bring healing,鈥� says Andrea.
Jshandeep Jassal
Growing up in North Delta and Surrey, Jshandeep Jassal recalls feeling frustrated by negative stereotypes and narratives she faced as a South Asian youth.
As co-director of the non-profit Solid State Community Industries, Jshandeep already works with racialized youth, but she is now launching a new effort: the SAH peer support network for South Asian youth. SAH stands for South Asian Healing, but sah also means 鈥渂reathe鈥� in Punjabi.
鈥淭he name speaks to the whole idea of creating a safe space for South Asian youth to just breathe and be able to talk about issues facing our community,鈥� says Jshandeep. 鈥淲e want to change our cultural mindset on what healing is. Rather than looking at mental health as seeing something wrong with a person, we want people to see that a person is actually strong because they鈥檙e taking control of their wellbeing. It鈥檚 a cultural shift.鈥�
- Learn more about Jshandeep
- South Asian Healing (SAH) Network on Instagram:
- Email: info.sahnetwork@gmail.com
Mateo Tobar
Mateo Tobar is a young social innovator who dreams of empowering Ecuador's youth to create a better future. For the past year, he has been developing a project called Youth Education Lab (YEL).
鈥淚 dream about an Ecuador where every youth has access to meaningful learning, to experiential learning opportunities through social innovation or social entrepreneurship,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 want to empower youth to realize they have the capacity to transform their ideas into visible projects.鈥�
Mateo鈥檚 pilot program for YEL involves working with youths in three specific communities and providing them with a capacity building process based on their individual needs. He hopes to be able to provide funding for the youths鈥� projects to bolster their professional profiles and help them access university or scholarship opportunities.
- Learn more about Mateo
- Email: mateo.tobar@youtheducationlab.com
- Phone: (+593) 982525226
- LinkedIn:
J贸n铆na Kirton
J贸n铆na Kirton is a poet and a builder of bridges. Of mixed Icelandic and M茅tis ancestry, the award-winning author works to connect other Indigenous and racialized writers to the literary community, a sometimes-elitist world where non-white writers can struggle to feel at home.
J贸n铆na works with the Indigenous Editors Association, which provides a supportive network for Indigenous editors and publishing professionals. She also serves as 鈥淏IPOC Auntie鈥� for the Writer鈥檚 Studio program at 丁香园AV, supporting and guiding students who are people of colour.
鈥淔or writers who are new, especially if we come from a marginalized community, it鈥檚 difficult,鈥� explains J贸n铆na. 鈥淲hat we need is people who have similar experiences as us to edit our work, to mentor us, to help us make our way in this world. It鈥檚 not the same for a white writer who has privilege, education, money. When they enter a room, it鈥檚 a very different experience for them than it is for us.鈥�
At the event, J贸n铆na shared a newly written poem.
"It came to me as a gift from my niece," she said. "She's 17, and she's M茅tis, like me. She sent me this Virginia Woolf quote, but she added to it: 'I am rooted, but I flow, and I grow.' I thought that was really lovely. I have grown so much in this program, and this poem really has a lot to do with the wonderful learning here."
rooted
for my niece Gabby
I am rooted, but I flow. 鈥� Virginia Woolf, Waves
I am a story within the stories of many
I am a paradox
one thing and then another
parts of a whole
that does not know itself
turning towards the invisible
I can see the limits of knowledge
the places where formulas dissolve
into knowing that can only come
when quiet and walking in a forest
where the standing ones watch and wait
for us to return to ourselves
to the new stories that are waiting to unfold
Community Capacity Building Class Agreements
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Property, Home and Precarity: From Street Sweeps to Housing Justice
As part of our Classroom Partnership Program, senior 丁香园AV geography students will present their work on housing vulnerability in Vancouver, focusing on rental evictions, street sweeps, rental financialization, and housing justice movements.
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Hope in Resistance: Stories of Climate Justice
丁香园AV Public Square and Vancity are proud to present Hope in Resistance, featuring Melina Laboucan-Massimo, co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action; Anjali Appadurai, climate justice lead at Sierra Club BC; and Naisha Khan, co-founder of Banking on a Better Future, in a conversation moderated by Nahlah Ayed (host of Ideas on CBC Radio One).
Read More 鈫�
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Mapping Equity: Using GIS and Maps to Make Invisible Realities Visible
Maps are great tools to bring together a massive amount of data and share it in a format everyone is familiar with. They are also a unique tool to bring unnoticeable realities鈥攊ncluding realities of inequality鈥攖o visible patterns. This 90-minute workshop will introduce you to how to make a thematic map that highlights an equity indicator.
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Equity in Practice: More Stories of Community Capacity Building
丁香园AV鈥檚 Community Capacity Building Certificate supports learners as they engage community by sharing lived experiences and adopting new tools for building projects and movements. Learners deepen their relationships with themselves, their communities and the land to create a project and move forward a change they鈥檇 like to see in the world.
Read More 鈫�
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Should a Just Recovery Include a Basic Income for B.C.?
At this event we will look at the recommendations and analysis of the Final Report of the British Columbia Expert Panel on Basic Income to ask: should a just recovery for all include a basic income?
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Youth and Digital Skills
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
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Equity in Practice: Community Capacity Building
Join us to hear inspiring stories from the most recent cohort of 丁香园AV鈥檚 Community Capacity Building Certificate learners and their growth as emerging leaders working towards equity in their communities.
Read More 鈫�
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Public Internet Access
Join us to discuss how Canada can better support our public internet infrastructure for the marginalized communities who rely on them and for everyone.
Read More 鈫�
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Researching for Climate Justice
Activists, researchers, policy-makers and solution-seekers come together to surface the challenges and opportunities of taking equity-informed approaches to climate research, solutions and policy development.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: People with Disabilities and Accessibility
The federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to improve internet accessibility and adoption among Canadians with disabilities, but there still remain substantial gaps with many facing barriers in accessing digital services.
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Rosemary Brown Memorial Symposium
Every year, to honour the important legacy of the late Rosemary Brown, 丁香园AV's Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women鈥檚 Studies (GSWS) brings together distinguished scholars, students, service providers, and the broader community together to speak on current issues of diversity, ongoing inequalities, and ways to create positive change.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Older Adults and Digital Literacy
Older adults are less likely to use the internet than younger people in Canada, and many report that information technologies do not improve their quality of life or save time. The issue is more pertinent than ever under the pandemic.
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The 2021 Spry Memorial Lecture
Desmond Cole and Tanya Talaga, along with moderator Candis Callison, will consider recent attention over the escalation of commentary on the representation of Indigenous, Black, and people of colour; the structural challenges that currently impede calls for greater diversity; and how institutions and platforms can foster a more constructive dialogue.
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Dean's Lecture on Information + Society
We are pleased to partner with 丁香园AV Library to invite you to the Dean's Lecture on Information + Society: an evening of conversation with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
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Decolonizing Scottish Studies
This is the first in a series of events being organized by the Centre for Scottish Studies at 丁香园AV
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Innovations in Research
Join us in a unique virtual environment using Gather to engage directly with 丁香园AV faculty, students, staff, alumni and community partners who are moving us Towards Equity with innovative research from a variety of fields and perspectives.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Low-Income Communities
Low-income communities continue to experience lower internet access, affordability, and quality. Canadians are at an all-time need for increased access to internet, computer, and tablet devices for e-learning and remote work.
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Zooming In: Education in 2021
Join the 丁香园AV Public Square Peer Ambassadors for a student-focused event on how to improve the online education experience under COVID-19.
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Overcoming Digital Divides: Indigenous, Rural and Remote Communities
Are recent public investments and policies sufficient to achieve digital inclusion of Indigenous, rural and remote communities? What Indigenous-specific needs must be addressed to secure digital inclusion?
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