In This Issue
- CCEDNet is pleased to announce that this year’s conference was a success with over 450 participants! Click here to read more>
- Annual Report: Message from our Executive Director - The past year has proven that now is the time to create a strong, collective vision of a better future for Canada’s communities. Click here to read more>
- CCEDNet is coordinating a national project, sponsored by HRSDC’s Social Development Partnerships Program, involving four CED partner organizations from across the country in developing and promoting innovative ways of assessing the impact of locally-based CED work on the lives of individuals in their communities. Click here to read more>
- 2007 CCEDNet Annual General Meeting Outcomes. Click here to read more>
- Youth & CED: CCEDNet’s Emerging Leaders Committee - Excited about working in the CED movement? Want to get involved at the national level? Click here to read more>
- UPDATE: CreateAction Work Experience Program: Great news! As of January 2007, 62% of the program participants have been able to find full-time employment during, or at the completion of their internship. Click here to read more>
- TAKE ACTION! Status of Women Canada is facing a $5-million reduction in funding to Status of Women Canada’s Women’s Program, the proposed closure of regional offices and changed terms and conditions for grants and contributions. Click here to find out what you can do>
- Partnering with The University of Victoria’s BC Institute of Co-operative Studies, CCEDNet is the co-lead of the National Research Program on the Social Economy, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Click here to find out how to register for the international conference on the social economy happening in Victoria, BC>
- Announcing the winners of the National and Local CED Showcase Award! Click here to read more>
- CCEDNet has engaged with our partners at Edible Strategies and the Centre for Community Enterprise to collaborate on policy development relating to Canada’s Agricultural Policy Framework and issues of food sustainability. Click here to read more>
2007 National CED Conference
CCEDNet is pleased to announce that this year's conference was a success with over 450 participants! The event featured over 40 workshops on a wide range of topics, engaging keynote speakers, a youth forum, and sessions on immigrant and refugee-centred CED. Check online on our 2007 National Conference page for more information on the conference presentations (available soon). The link to the 2007 conference proceedings will be sent out to all members in June.
Contact:
Jaie Skalin
National Conference Coordinator
jskalin@ccednet-rcdec.ca
Message from our Executive Director
The past year has proven that now is the time to create a strong, collective vision of a better future for Canada’s communities. Scenes on our televisions from aboriginal communities showing housing and health conditions difficult to believe gave us a sense of how bad things can get when government neglect is allowed to go unchallenged. An ever-growing stream of homeless people looking for shelter and support provides emphatic evidence of the need for action across governments to support innovative community-based housing and poverty-reduction solutions. The experience of rural towns and villages with a cycle of agricultural neglect, rural poverty, and out-migration cry out for a community economic development solution to agricultural policy that at the same time addresses opportunities for improving food sustainability and reducing climate change.
For all of these and many other reasons, CCEDNet has a vital role to play in growing a movement for grassroots community-led solutions. Community economic development activities of our members are creating major solutions for Canadians and their communities. Scaled up and supported systematically by a sympathetic policy environment, CED could offer viable, holistic responses to inter-related social, economic and environment challenges. These challenges include issues ranging from housing to childcare, employment training to immigrant settlement, and from climate change to food sustainability. Bringing together activities and solutions is what the Network is all about. We are focused on building a common space and voice for those doing the work in communities, a space where we can learn from one another, develop common tools and resources, advocate for policy changes that respond to the real needs of the people in our communities, and produce evidence-based research on what’s working and why.
Our Network’s growth to nearly 700 members, with some 10,000 users of our resources, shows the continuing need for a movement like ours, even as it becomes more difficult to obtain funding for core functions. We hope you will continue to join us and participate in building our vision of a better Canada from the ground up, community-by-community!
Rupert Downing
Executive Director