BCHC Newsletter - April 2012

THE NEWS
K
Back by Popular Demand - New Webinar with Phil Hanlon on June 13th, 2012

BC Healthy Communities is excited to host another webinar in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer on June 13th with key speaker Dr. Phil Hanlon from the University of Glasgow. On April 3rd Dr. Hanlon presented his findings regarding some of the challenges to modern approaches to public health practices during the 1st webinar ' Calling for the 5th Wave in Public Health'.   The April 3rd webinar helped describe the challenges modernity poses in the context of health indicators and barriers.  Some of participants responded the following after the webinar:

“I have a better understanding of how to be more effective in being helpful to people who have been marginalized by developing relationships, and more generally for everyone to include the beautiful dimension in the forefront”

‘Thank you very much for this opportunity to hear important perspectives and come away refreshed with new ideas and inspiration’

You can now listen to the April 3rd webinar session online, to start the webinar click here

The June 13th webinar ‘Nudging Us Towards the 5th Wave of Public Health - New Practices and Policies’ will also include a presentation of Anne Docherty from the Storytellers Foundation. More details about the webinar and the registration procedure will be announced on the BCHC website in May. If you want to pre-register you can send an email to bchc@bchealthycommunities.ca.

THE COMMUNITY


Citizens Series III Coming Your WayKK
Great news for Northern residents! BC Healthy Communities and the Northern Health Authority have committed to deliver another year of FREE webinar series on specific topics that are critical to improving the health outcomes of northern people. BCHC and NHA are continuing their partnership to build on the momentum created through Citizen Series I and II delivered through 2010 -2012.  

The intention of each session will be to involve local citizens, health authorities and local government participants along with guest speakers to share best practices, success stories and challenges from the local/regional perspective. 

Citizen Series III will consist of 4 webinars focused on a specific topic and supported by a Think piece. The new dates will be posted on the BC Healthy Communities website and in our communications. 

Can't wait? Check out the past webinars on our website here. 

THE CHAMPION
k
Niagara Grocery
K

Jennifer McKimmie, proud owner of Niagara Grocery, located in beautiful, historic James Bay. Victoria BC’s oldest grocery store and since nicely updated!

Niagara Grocery in James Bay has been transformed from a tried convenience store into an award-winning neighborhood market. In the grocery store you can buy local produce, daily bread, artisan cheese & sausage, and house-roasted coffees. Jennifer makes the greatest effort to provide not only local foods but also gluten-free products. 


Previously working as the Afternoon Tea Manager at the Empress Hotel, Jennifer recognized that there were growing requests for gluten-free items on the menu and as the new owner of Niagara Grocery she saw this as an excellent opportunity to meet the growing demand for these products. Next time you are in the area you can stop by the original James Bay location or even the newest addition—the Fairfield Market near the corner of Fairfield & Moss street.

(Photo Credits: Eatmagazine)


THE ARTICLEK
K
Chandler- Gonzales Pathway in Victoria to Re-Open!

Back in August, community member Hazel Currie submitted an update on the community vision to re-open the Chandler- Gonzales public walkway in Victoria, providing a safe route to a local elementary school and a pedestrian-friendly link for the entire community.  An exciting news release that just came out announced that Victoria City Council have unanimously agreed to re-open the walkway.  The recent article as follows: After more than 30 years the Chandler-Gonzales Pathway will be re-opened, returning this Greenway to the community and providing a safer route for children heading to and from Ecole Margaret Jenkins School.

“I’m thrilled with the unanimous decision by Victoria City Council to make this project a reality,” said Peter Nagati, spokesperson for the Committee to Re-open the Chandler-Gonzales Pathway. “With the support of hundreds of area residents, local businesses and the city, I’m confident we can have the path re-opened in time for the new school year in September.”

Victoria City Council has approved a budget that will provide for clearing along the right-of-way, chain link fencing with hedging to help ensure the neighbours’ privacy, and a gravel surface along the 250 metre pathway that links Pemberton Park with Chandler Street.  In addition, pedestrian crossings will also be installed on both Gonzales and Chandler Streets.

The Committee to Re-open the Chandler-Gonzales Pathway is made up of a dozen local residents who worked tirelessly to return this public asset to the community.  There are more than 650 letters of support and commitments from local businesses to help provide materials, along with volunteers ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
From the early 1900's until the mid-1970's, the pathway existed between Pemberton Park and Chandler Avenue providing a direct connection between the neighbourhoods north of Gonzales Ave. with Ecole Margaret Jenkins School and the neighbourhoods to the south.  Although closed in the 1970's, the City of Victoria had the foresight to maintain ownership of the land.

EVENTS


Youth Arts Festival – May 27 – Centennial Square, Victoria
 

As part of the City of Victoria’s 150 year celebrations The City of Victoria Youth Council (CVYC) is hosting a Youth Arts Festival which highlights the spectrum of artistic talents of young people in Victoria across three broad areas: performance arts, visual arts and crafts. The events profiles and celebrates the talents of youth in Victoria in a free and exciting, family friendly and age inclusive event.

The CVYC is a youth-driven, grassroots project that offers opportunities for civic engagement to youth who live, work, hang out or got to school in the City of Victoria. The CVYC is hosted by BC Healthy Communities. For more information about the CVYC please visit the CVYC website or contact Sarah Amyot at info@cvyc.net

THE WATCH
K
Want to see age-friendly communities in action?

Seniors BC has created  Age-friendly BC (AFBC) community videos featuring seniors, local government staff and officials, and community representatives talking about what makes their community or organization age-friendly.

The videos were developed primarily for local governments, but others may find project ideas that fit their own communities as well. You can watch the full video, which includes an introduction to AFBC with all of the topics, or choose a video on one of the specific age-friendly topics from the Seniors BC website by clicking here 

BCHC Newsletter - April 2011

THE CHAMPION

Sasa Loggin is the Project Director of Skeena Diversity Society, an organization that has set out to make Terrace a more welcoming and inclusive community for all of its members. A dynamic community developer, Sasa wears several “hats” in her community, and in addition to her work supporting immigrants in adapting to their new community, she has also contributed to her community as the coordinator of Terrace’s Make Children First Network. The organization focuses on the development of children aged zero to six, recognizing the importance of early child development, and helping to create a community where children and families are supported and valued.

While Sasa has been involved with Skeen Diversity throughout its ten years of existence, this year marked a milestone when they opened the Skeena Diversity Centre, a place for community members to meet, gather, share ideas and get to know each other. The centre is open 6 days per week, and among other things hosts activities such as community potlucks, movie nights, coffee houses, art shows and community dialogues. Sasa describes the Centre as a hub where Skeena Diversity Society supports and connects community members who have ideas for their community and want to develop new opportunities.

Sasa is an incredible multi-tasker with seemingly boundless energy, a contagious positive attitude and an abundance of creative ideas. She and her team have carried out a wide array of community building activities, but one of the most exciting is the work they are doing to bring the community together to explore potential opportunities for an old abandoned Co-op property near Terrace’s downtown. Working with the mayor and Council they recently hosted a series of community dialogues to gather community feedback about the site which Sasa hopes could one day become a key community gathering place.

A collaborative leader at heart, and this year Sasa initiated a partnership with BC Healthy Communities and the Centre for Innovative Leadership to offer the Leading Communities program in Terrace. The program is a community leadership training program which works with emerging, potential and experienced leaders in rural communities to develop and enhance their leadership skills for collaborative community action. “If we are going to create a more welcoming and inclusive community” she says, “we need more diverse and inclusive leadership”.

THE PRACTICE

Creating Community Owned Resources: Youthcore.ca
by Sarah Amyot

We recently launched a new Youthcore.ca website to support our Victoria-based youth engagement work. While a website re-launch may not seem to have much to do with effective practice for healthy community development, what I’ve been struck by is how important fostering genuine community ownership has been to the success of our work.

In a context of a highly globalized economy in which the jobs and food that feed our communities are moved further and further afield and many of the decisions that affect our daily lives seem to be made ‘somewhere else’, we find in many communities we work with, people express a sense frustration that locally controlled resources are being removed from the community. Creating and re-building a sense of community-ownership is a fundamental part of any community development process and something we try to model throughout all of our work at BC Healthy Communities and within our Youthcore program.

Youthcore.ca is the online platform for much of our youth work, and it is much more than a website- it is the culmination and manifestation of years of partnership building and mutual support. The site is Greater Victoria's online youth portal- it is all about young people in the Greater Victoria area connecting, learning and enjoying our communities in safe and positive ways. The site is designed to provide up to date and locally relevant information for youth, service providers and parents. It's full of information - about programs, places, events and resources in Victoria. Since its inception, the site has been heavily used by the community and its usage continues to grow.

The real success of our work is shared by the youth and youth-serving community of Greater Victoria. Margaret Wheatley reminds us that "in organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions"- this is true of Youthcore.ca as well. The site was originally developed with the active involvement of teams of local youth who used a process of community asset mapping to assess what resources were currently available in the community. The site was, then as now, supported by the local Youth Service Provider Network, a loose alliance of over 300 youth-serving organizations and professionals. Together local youth and youth service providers are responsible for maintaining, updating and expanding the site. Organizations and individual citizens can all log in to add new information, resources or events (currently there are over 600 local youth serving programs and places listed on the site). Unlike traditional resource directories that often go rapidly out of date, this sense of community ownership helps keep the site current and locally relevant. I think in many ways, the success of this website model exemplifies the real dedication and commitment of the youth serving community in the Greater Victoria area.

For more information about this or other emerging practices we’re using in our youth engagement work, please contact Sarah Amyot, Youth Engagement Projects Coordinator at youth@bchealthycommunities.ca

EVENTS

Open House! White Rock Arts and Culture Database
White Rock Community Centre
Launch of the Arts and Culture database!!
April 26, 2011, 7:30pm
For more information click here

Northern BC Citizens Series on Health
Northern Health’s Population Health team, in partnership with BC Healthy Communities, is hosting a series of web-based seminars to invite dialogue from a broad representation of Northern communities on specific topics that are critical to improving the health outcomes of northern people. We want grassroots community members, local government representatives, service providers, and others to engage and participate in shared learning about some specific issues related to health determinants. We hope the discussion that follows will lead to increased civic participation and the emergence of creative partnerships which tackle these challenging issues collectively in ways that will move the North toward healthier outcomes for its communities and citizens.

Webinar! Healthy Schools: Learning Environments That Promote Lifelong Health
When: Thursday, April 28th, 2011.1:30pm-3:30pm PST.
Where: Online webinar
For more information click here

Forum! Healthy by Nature
A forum on the physical & mental health benefits of time spent in nature.
When: September 20 -23, 2011.
Where: Vancouver, BC
For more information click here

THE READINGS

Recreating the World
by Michael Bopp and Judie Bopp

Recreating the World is a comprehensive field guide to sustainable community development. Rooted in more than 20 years of hands-on development work in North America and around the world, it is written to be used by people who are working to bring about change in their own communities, and by professionals working with communities to solve critical human problems.

Recreating the World is really two books woven together. The first is a basic discussion of what human systems transformation is, and what it takes to make it happen. The second is a collection of resources (games, stories, activities, tools) that can be used to teach the basic concepts of the book, either in the field or in a classroom setting.