Our HRM Alliance- Greenbelting and Complete Communities 
Friday, May 1, 2015, 03:28 PM - Inspiring
WRWEO, the environmental association that I Co-chair is an active member of Our HRM Alliance. Comprised now of 54 local groups and organizations, Our HRM Alliance accompanied and lobbied the Halifax regional planning process that took place over the last few years. The Alliance has adopted a two-pronged approach to going forward:

1. Greenbelting (including an initiative for people to hike, bike, canoe the greenbelt around HRM to explore its possibility)

2. Complete communities. Suburbs are not the problem. If suburban communities are built with transit at their core, walkable design, and a mix of shops and other business, they can encourage healthier lifestyles and produce considerably less emissions.

The problem is single-use, low-density sprawl. When communities are built in a way that makes cars the only option for doing every single task of the day, they engender enormous costs.


See the related link below for more detail including our own David Patriquin's brief on the impact that green belting will have on biodiversity.
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Inspirational community work: Sketch & Courage Lab exploring Decolonization 
Thursday, April 23, 2015, 03:36 PM - Inspiring
I've been a supporter of this organization for years. Use them as a case-study in my facilitation. Early, early days I was a volunteer in Toronto. Such an inspiring approach full of dignity and possibility - the best of what art can do.

Courage Lab, is part of a new collaborative project between Neighbourhood Arts Network, ANVU and SKETCH, aiming to gather diverse artists, educators, organizers and activists to courageously investigate, share and experiment with concepts, ideas, tools and practices for exploring equity and anti-oppression through the arts. On Wednesday, April 1, the most recent lab explored decolonization.

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Finnish Educational System kicking butt with a Less is More approach to learning and life 
Thursday, April 23, 2015, 03:11 PM - Inspiring
1. Less formal schooling
2. Less time in school (more play, more idleness)
3. Fewer instruction hours (more planning time for teachers to be creative)
4. Fewer teachers over a longer period
5. Fewer classes (more breaks)
6. Less testing. More learning.
7. Fewer topics. More depth.
8. Less homework. More participation.
9. Fewer students. More individual attention.
10. Less structure. More trust.

Check out the full article on the related link below.
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Social change through alliances and networks- One of the few things that works 
Wednesday, April 15, 2015, 10:22 AM - The Solidarity Economy & Microfinance
Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA, women's labor and self-employed movement close to one million strong, once said. "A project never changed the world."

There is growing consensus that the old approach to community development, local economic development have not been working because they are not really addressing larger political and systemic issues. This is partly because they are atomized into departments, projects, institutional and individual egos. Growing experience of what works in communities and has been written about in theory is that alliances and networks are one of the keys. This includes effective engagement of government and business. One of the ways that corporations or the private sector are held accountable is through alliances that have legitimate ownership and power at the local level.

This from a conference at Harvard in October of 2014. The Doing Development Differently conference. They found that successful initiatives reflect common principles:

They focus on solving local problems that are debated, defined and refined by local people in an ongoing process.
They are legitimised at all levels (political, managerial and social), building ownership and momentum throughout the process to be ‘locally owned’ in reality (not just on paper).
They work through local conveners who mobilise all those with a stake in progress (in both formal and informal coalitions and teams) to tackle common problems and introduce relevant change.
They blend design and implementation through rapid cycles of planning, action, reflection and revision (drawing on local knowledge, feedback and energy) to foster learning from both success and failure.
They manage risks by making ‘small bets’: pursuing activities with promise and dropping others.
They foster real results – real solutions to real problems that have real impact: they build trust, empower people and promote sustainability.

I would add:

They are political.

All of my experiences with alliances, citizen-driven examples I've seen at all levels from social movements in Brazil to neighbourhood revitalization include advocacy and political organizing. Even the literature supports the notion that the non-profits that have achieved the most impact have done so at a systems or collective level, not organizational. And through what they do in combination with advocacy. This is the little left out bit in all of our conversations about collective impact and social entrepreneurship, doing things differently. It's the only way to clear a path for and sustain the gains that we make.

Local Food Systems, Sectoral Change and the Role of Government, Businesses 
Thursday, January 8, 2015, 11:26 PM - The Solidarity Economy & Microfinance
Participated in a really well-facilitated day-long session through the Our Local Food Team, Ecology Action Centre, on the next phase of their work in local food. This on the heels of a fabulous food conference here in Halifax.

I did a contract with the Public Health Agency of Canada- Innovation Strategy related to EAC and the food team. I was looking at how subsidy can support networks and sectoral-level lasting social change rather than projects and organizations.

Two themes predominated:

- how to move to system or sectoral level change
- how to engage businesses

The following came out of the work that I did in the contract as key considerations:

- Real lasting change happens through networks of unlikely suspects together for a specific purpose i.e. tackle obesity or get kids outdoors. It grows from a small corner of energy and champions. Passion capital is key at the start. We need government, private sector and community organizations and residents to be at the tables if they are to move - and last.

- The term businesses or private sector needs breaking down. Cooperatives are businesses. Small family-owned businesses are private sector. There is so much more than big corporations and foundation grants. In my experience, some of the most exciting stuff is happening in the middle with smaller, local businesses. For example, venture philanthropy pools small business capital into a larger fund that can be used for supporting a food distribution system. Or in San Diego, in a neighbourhood revitalization movement community members contributed their own capital (aver. $500) and pooled $300,000- enough to get start-up capital for a local grocery store. These are a far cry from the cheap, corporate food model.

Government and donors can play the important role of up-front subsidy, risk financing. Later, businesses can participate, particularly if there opportunity for income such as links with restaurants, farmers, distributors. But every business/governance model is embedded in the relationships and the community. The lasting examples have had the unlikely suspects around the table analyzing the situation and making hard decisions about what matters, where funding comes from and how to paddle in the same direction.




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