More on the forum in Calgary
I posted on my blog about the conference, and got some interesting feedback from people, not all of whom attended the Forum.
Category : Blogroll
Tags: calgary, canadian social forum, Poverty
Canadian Social Forum 2009
We’re blogging LIVE from the Canadian Social Forum! Here, community leaders from social development, public health, environment, community safety and recreation are brought together. The Forum targets poverty – both urban and rural. Workshops by aboriginal presenters doing innovative work across the country will play a critical role.ACT Now 4 Change
Canadian Social Forum Opening Reception
Calgary is cold on May 19th. It’s supposed to get warmer over the next few days, as anti-poverty activists gather here for the Canadian Social Forum to share ideas about how to address the conundrum of poverty in our rich nation. We all hope that the Forum will be a place where great ideas spread and new ideas foment, and that one day we can trace back significant changes for people living in poverty to these chilly days in one of the most well-to-do cities in our country.
I’m the Founding Director of the Global Advocacy and Leadership Initiative (GALI), an organization we are launching in 2009 after 5 years of exciting incubation at the University of Toronto law school. Advocacy is critically important for our democracies, our lives, and leadership. Through GALI, we teach and advise on advocacy on the basis of comprehensive research, including interviews with top advocates from around the world. We are developing a global community and conversation about advocacy and leadership that transcends issue, ideology, and sector.
This week, I’m conducting a workshop on poverty advocacy at the Canadian Social Forum. My co-presenter, Penny Goldsmith, is the Executive Director of PovNet, the innovative online resource centre on poverty in Canada, and the recipient of the inaugural Alan Thomas Fellowship from the Carold Institute. I’m blogging from the Forum for CitizenShift, the NFB website that provides a forum for posting and interaction on social issues, where you’re reading this right now.
The Forum opened last night with some fanfare at the Telus Center. I went out for drinks afterwards with Penny and her fellow British Columbia poverty activist, Vicky. We talked about the new government in BC, and how discouraging the recent election has been for people living in and combatting poverty there. Another reminder of how important the question of how we measure poverty is. Governments too often take steps that will lead to impressive gains in numbers, at the cost of great hardship on the ground. But there are heartening counterexamples in Canada and elsewhere, some of which are being discussed here over the next few days.
Last week, I was in New York, where I thought a great deal about poverty and innovative solutions. I spent time with Paul Tough, a New York based Canadian whose extraordinary book, Whatever It Takes, recounts the story of Geoff Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone, a new approach to bringing children out of poverty. Obama has pledged to replicate the Zone in 20 cities across the US, and I’m interested to see what Canadians think about its relevance for our cities and children. I also met Prakash Nair, an architect who ran New York’s School Construction Authority for a decade before leaving to start his own firm, through which he designs and builds a new kind of school, one that takes into account how different children learn. He’s currently working in the Arctic Circle and Saskatchewan, among other places. His work, like the Harlem Children’s Zone, rethinks social services, community, and education, and how they operate together to maintain the status quo, or, ideally, to transform our lives and society.
The Canadian Council on Social Development has brought to Calgary some of the most important people working on poverty in Canada. Over the next few days, I’ll blog about the innovative ideas I’m hearing here about how to make this country a leader in eradicting poverty and transforming society.
Category : Uncategorized
Tags: canadian social forum, innovation, Poverty
CITIZENShift is heading to Calgary!
From May 19 through the 22nd, we’ll be at the FIRST Canadian Social Forum!
We’re very excited to be attending this event and offering our workshop: The Power of Social Media, which we are co-presenting with our friends, Athena Lothian from the Métis Nation of Alberta and Yvonne Poitras Pratt from the University of Calgary.
Our session is designed to explain and demystify the term “social media” and demonstrate the advantages, ease and fun (!) that interactive Internet practises can offer individuals and organizations. Athena and Yvonne will lead a hands-on Digital Storytelling component of the workshop which CITIZENShift will then host on the site!
The full program for the Forum is currently on the CSF website. It’s going to be hard to chose which workshops to attend as they all look so engaging. And, for that reason, FOLLOW OUR LIVE BLOG, right here throughout the three day event and follow us on Twitter.
It is a great privilege to be collaborating on such a significant Forum–one that seeks to address and find solutions to poverty. I hope you’ll enjoy the reactions and opinions of this event in the blog posts to come. Stay tuned!
Category : Uncategorized
Tags: calgary, canadian social forum, Poverty, social media
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About this blog
We’re blogging LIVE from the Canadian Social Forum! Here, community leaders from social development, public health, environment, community safety and recreation are brought together. The Forum targets poverty – both urban and rural. Workshops by aboriginal presenters doing innovative work across the country will play a critical role.
Blog Authors
Arti PatelArti Patel is a third-year journalism student at Ryerson, specializing in online and television journalism. She enjoys mentoring and exploring different cultures and their lifestyles. Currently she is the volunteer and outreach coordinator at Verse City.
pamPam Shime is the Founding Director of the Global Advocacy & Leadership Initiative (GALI), which is being launched in the summer of 2009 after five years of dynamic incubation at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Through GALI, Pam teaches and advises on advocacy and leadership on the basis of global and cross-disciplinary research, including interviews with top advocates from around the world. Pam received a 2008 U of T Teaching Award for her course, “How to Make Change.”
pennyPenny Goldsmith is the Executive Co-ordinator of PovNet, an online resource for anti-poverty advocates, based in British Columbia. She is currently the recipient of the inaugural Alan Thomas Fellowship from the Carold Institute and is writing a book about PovNet and building online communities.
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