Community development organizers are banking on a wealth of ideas about how Powell River can move forward when they bring diverse groups of people together for their Defining Diversity Creating Community workshops and research project.
The workshops are being developed and hosted by a partnership between Vancouver Island University (VIU), Powell River Model Community for Persons with Disabilities (MCP) and Tla’amin Community Health.
Four two-day workshops are planned over the next two years and are made possible by a community development grant. Organizers received a $29,900 50-50 grant from Vancouver Foundation and matching funds from a broad range of local groups including Powell River and District United Way, First Credit Union, Powell River Association for Community Living and Community Living BC. At the end of two years, the project will culminate with a community-engaged research report.
“We were very keen to approach Tla’amin community health because the success of community change has to include first nations,” said Alison Taplay, a VIU instructor in the community support worker program.
Creating awareness around diversity is of interest to Tla’amin, said Rose Adams, associate health director at community health. “We’re all unique and bring something to the table. Everybody has to first recognize their potential and the potential of others,” she said.
Taplay and Adams described the philosophy of the course as having elements of aboriginal culture interspersed with a focus on respect, dialogue, inclusion and capacity thinking. The focus is on what resources are available rather than what are not.
Taplay worked together with Janet Newbury to develop a pilot workshop curriculum, which was held in November 2011. About 20 people attended the pilot workshop and Taplay described it as a success.
“It just rocked out our expectations about what people experienced at the workshop and then what they went forth and did in the community,” said Taplay.
David Morris, executive director of MCP and member of Powell River Regional Economic Development Society (PRREDS) was one of the 20 participants in that first session.
“What this program does is open up a much broader range and sources of ideas for community development,” said Morris. “It all starts as an idea germinating in someone’s head. We just want to encourage them with a non-threatening environment.”
Taplay said this element was key to how the workshop curriculum was developed. “The curriculum was designed to help give those conversations shape and provide people to even have these conversations with each other,” she said. “It’s about sharing where everyone is coming from and talking about ideas of moving forward.
“Everyone knows that Powell River is facing economic and social decline because of our dependence on resource industries,” she added. “I don’t think Powell River or the province or the country has found a way through that yet.”
If people come from different perspectives, Morris said, “they may have divergent ideas about how to go, but they all agree that their interest is in the development, growth and sustainability of Powell River.”
Grant money will be used to pay for the workshop fee of participants chosen by local sponsors, but the event is open to anyone in the community if they wish to pay, said Taplay. She said that using the grant money in this way ensures a diverse group will be able to participate.
