This Canada-wide community of practice, was born out of the Healthy Communities Initiative, a $60 million investment from the Government of Canada to transform public spaces in response to COVID-19. This community of practice has a platform and a shared space to explore place-based change and the role that community-led initiatives play in building our sense of belonging and our individual and collective well being.

Since 2021 this community of practice, articulated through a diverse range of communication channels and capacity enhancing activities, has engaged with +300 practitioners enabling opportunities to build the connective tissue for place-based change initiatives across Canada.

Between June and September 2023, as part of Canada’s Placemaking Community and in partnership with Happy Cities, we hosted 8 online sessions that connected over 100 people to collectively explore the impacts of placemaking projects and initiatives. Participants included city staff, funders, businesses, community organizations, and people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. A diversity of projects were shared, from rural to urban settings, online and in person, and showcasing a range of creative place-based projects. As a result of this process, the Power of Placemaking was developed. This resource provides data on the impacts of placemaking in our individual and collective well being, as well as stories from community-led initiatives from across Canada.

Research piece that emerged from 39 interviews with diverse stakeholders from the Freedom of Expression and Information (FoE&I) ecosystem who agreed to share their experiences and reflections regarding collaboration. As a result of this process, we mapped out barriers and enablers for collaboration among Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the FoE&I space. After codification of the interviews, four key learnings emerged from the thematic analysis. These learnings were translated into a set of recommendations and practical actions for IFEX to focus on over the next year, as well as to use in the preparation of its next strategic plan. 

The Café at the Edge of the World is a one-week virtual learning space, crafted and curated by the Wolf Willow Faculty to nourish, challenge, provoke and support systems change practitioners. The Café is not about answers or solutions, instead, it is about cooking up capacity, courage and relationship. I worked with the Wolf Willow Faculty as well as the Artists in Residence, providing production and tech support, before, during and after the Café. Set-up of an online learning platform (Mighty Networks), technical set-up for the one week virtual learning program (Zoom) and ongoing live support to participants throughout the Café.

Between 2021 and 2023, a mentorship program was offered to recipients of the Healthy Communities Initiative in collaboration with our network of partners. This program provided an opportunity to interact with other place-based practitioners and explore new ideas, practices and approaches. The mentorship program was intentionally designed to nurture relationships that could evolve and grow over time. Over 90 organizations funded under the Healthy Communities Initiative participated in this mentorship program between 2021 and 2023.

Conceptual framework that reflects the contributions of 27 activists from diverse fields. who shared their experiences, analysis and tactics on achieving change in their work. The framework presents a process to inspire conversations that can help Human Rights organizations and other civil society groups to navigate the current context together and to use it as a springboard for their conversations.