In this Issue:
National CED News
Innovative Co-op Projects Funding Application Now Online
Applications are now being accepted for the Innovative Co-operative Projects component of the Co-operative Development Initiative (CDI) program. CDI, which provides support to new and emerging co-operatives, is jointly managed by the Canadian Co-operative Association and the Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité. The program was recently renewed until 2013.
Co-ops seeking funding under the Innovative Co-operative Projects component of CDI have until July 31 to submit their proposals. For more information, click to visit www.coopscanada.coop/en/coopdev/CDI/Innovative-Co-operative-Projects.
Stéphane Audet, who managed the CDI Advisory Services program between 2003 and 2005, has been appointed program manager for the new CDI program.
Report on Economic Insurance in Canada Now Available
Over the last year, the CCPA has recommended that Employment Insurance benefits be boosted in order to adequately support Canadians affected by the economic downturn.
This recommendation is bolstered by a new CCPA study that shows Employment Insurance benefits in Canada are well below the OECD average, something that should make Canadians question the strength of their social safety net.
Canada's Declining Social Safety Net: The Case for EI Reform by economist Lars Osberg, finds that in terms of access, benefit duration, and income replacement levels, EI in Canada falls far below most other OECD countries and below the levels of Canadian unemployment insurance in past recessions.
The full report can be downloaded from the CCPA website.
CCEDNet Member Jody Bauche Wins Emerging Leaders Social Economy Hub Scholarship & Second Call for Proposals Issued
From Social Economy Hub website:
On April 15th, 2009 proposals were submitted to The Canadian Social Economy Hub (CSEHub) for their offering of the Emerging Leaders Scholarship Program. Two youths have been selected and have received $3000 to put toward their research projects. The winners are Andreas Gouldborough from Quebec and Canadian CED Network member Jody Bauche of British Columbia.
This scholarship program is intended to promote original research by emerging leaders in the Social Economy, and advance the capacity of successful candidates to further strengthen the Social Economy in their academic and practitioner sectors.
Bauche has worked as a community practitioner in the field of early childhood development and social services for nearly twelve years. Her main focus is finding sustainable and holistic ways to improve conditions for First Nations communities in BC. She is currently working as an Aboriginal Early Childhood Development Coordinator for southern Vancouver Island.
"It is my intent to bring life to Indigenous Sustainable Development for First Nations communities in BC's pacific northwest. It's common knowledge that British Columbia has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country and Indigenous children are at the centre of poverty in our province. My hope is that my research will help further a conversation and dialogue with regional chiefs around the importance of preserving our culture for future generations." Part of accomplishing her goal is to travel to New Zealand to research the Maori's implementation of the quadruple bottom line (environmental, social, economic and culturally sustainability) to see how BC can learn from their experiences and practices.
The Canadian Social Economy Hub (CSEHub) is inviting proposals for research scholarships from practitioners and students under 30‐years old who are working in the Social Economy.
The Program will provide scholarships of up to $3,000 per recipient towards salary replacement, national/international travel, or other actual costs of conducting research and producing a research report for publication by CSEHub. A review panel will assess proposals and make
recommendations by CSEHub Co-Directors who will select the scholarship recipients. The panel will be made up of representatives of the CSEHub board (including at least one academic), the Social Economy Student Network, and the Emerging Leaders Committee of the Canadian CED Network. These organizations will also act as a peer review panel for the scholarship recipients' research papers.
Deadline for proposals is September 15, 2009.
For a printable PDF of the full scholarship guidelines, click here.
For more information or to submit a proposal, email secoord@uvic.ca or visit the website: www.socialeconomyhub.ca
Women's World's Website
June 17, 2009 saw the unveiling of the trilingual website www.womensworlds.ca, which is home to the upcoming international feminist conference Women's Worlds 2011.
The eleventh Women's World congress will take place from July 3 to July 7, 2011 in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canada and is designed to fit the theme "Inclusions, Exclusions, and Seclusions: Living in a Globalized World." Violence against women, poverty, and the environment are just a few of the wide range of controversial sub-themes that WW 2011 plans to address.
To attract a more diverse group of participants and discussion board, the conference will also have pages set up on popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Women's World is held every three years in a different continent. This will mark the first time that Canada has hosted a Women's Worlds conference.
Commemorative Book "A Century of Co-operation" Now Available
From the Canadian Co-operative Association's (CCA) website:
One of the highlights of the Canadian Co-operative Association's
National Congress in Ottawa was the launch of A Century of Co-operation, a commemorative book by Canada's pre-eminent co-op historian, Ian MacPherson.
The 234-page book chronicles the history of Canada's co-operative movement through text and images from the movement's beginnings to the present day. The book can be ordered from CCA's website at: www.coopscanada.coop/en/about_cca/100th/Commemorative-book.
British Columbia CED News
LifeCycles Profile
History
In 1992, a group of people got together with the intention of creating a community garden. They began to see food as a connecting force in dire social, environmental, health, and economic issues, though, and expanded their mission accordingly. Adopting a wider focus that includes finding easy access to local food; educating the community about food-related issues; getting more people involved in urban agriculture and the production of food; and, overall, sparking community interest in food systems, LifeCycles has become not only an organization but a movement for social change.
Click here for a printable PDF of the story.
Immigrant CED Skills Report Now Online
The Immigrant CED Skills Report is intended to be useful in shaping the BC CED Network's thinking and approach to supporting Community Economic Development as a strategy for new immigrant integration. The report is based on survey responses from individuals who have direct work experience in both the immigrant settlement sector and the community economic development sector. All respondents are current or past students in the SFU Certificate Program for CED Professionals. One of the goals of the survey was to develop an assessment of the skills and training needs and opportunities of immigrant CED practitioners.
Click here for a printable PDF of the report.
Aboriginal Storytelling & CED
Community development in First Nation communities has many differences than non First Nation communities. To understand community development in First Nation communities we must be informed of First Nation and non First Nation history in Canada. It is from this history that Aboriginal communities in Canada have grown more resilient over the years since aboriginal and non aboriginal have lived together. First Nations people have relied on each other to collaborate and have become more committed to their communities.
Click here for a printable PDF of the story.
National Canadian CED Network News
CBC Showcases Inner City Renovation Inc.
The night before Canada Day, June 30, 2009, CBC Television News "The
National" aired a feature on the staff and mission of Canadian CED
Network member Inner City Renovation Inc.
Fittingly entitled "Making Canada Proud," the CBC program included reporter Reg Sherren's interview with Marty Donkervoort, the organizer and manager of this unique social enterprise, as one of six stories of "Canadians making a difference around the world."
Inner City Renovation Inc. is an organization in Inner Winnipeg, "a rough place with an even tougher reputation"(Sherren) that hires workers looking for a second chance and pays them high wages to help build affordable housing for low-income people.
Donkervoort has been with Inner City Renovation Inc. for almost 10 years and is planning to "hang up [his] tool belt" (from www.cbc.ca) come May 2010 in order to write a book.
If you missed the special - don't worry; you can still catch the interview on the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/national/ .
Social Enterprise: a Viable Instrument for Effective Immigrant Settlement -
Immigrant Settlement and Integration through Social Enterprise Initiative
This exciting project grew out of the Canadian CED Network's Immigrant and Refugee Community Action Network (ICAN), a national network of newcomer CED practitioners and their supporters.
The Immigrant Settlement and Integration through Social Enterprise (ISISE) project aims to illustrate that social enterprise development is a highly useful model in assisting immigrants to integrate into Canadian culture by employing their strengths and skill-sets, further developing existing capabilities, and creating networks within their local immigrant community. This can greatly assist with navigating resources and settlement supports, thereby facilitating, and easing, the settlement experience.
An essential first step for the project is to survey organizations that support immigrant social enterprise development, and immigrant social enterprises, to discover practices organizations identify as central to fulfilling their mission. Organizational profiles will subsequently be created with social enterprises willing to participate.
Surveys will be conducted only until August 10, 2009. If you know of any immigrant social enterprise-related organizations, please forward this message along and/or send their contact information to: nrosenow@dal.ca
For a printable PDF with more information on the survey, click here.
CreateAction Call for Proposals
What is the CED Work Experience Program?
The Canadian CED Network (CCEDNet) is pleased to announce the Call for
Proposals for the 7th intake of its CED Work Experience Program,
CreateAction. This program is funded by Service Canada. Its purpose is
to give out-of-school post-graduate youth who have a career focus in
CED a relevant six-month work experience placement. We are recruiting
up to 20 community-based CED organisations to host work experience
participants from August 4 - January 15th, 2010 inclusively.
How does it work?
Organizations apply to CCEDNet to host a
participant. CCEDNet selects the host organizations. The host
organizations in turn hire the participants according to job-specific
placements.
Eligible work experience placements may include project management, participatory research, communications, social entrepreneurship, business planning, social marketing, CED financing and asset mapping, to name a few.
CCEDNet requires host organizations to be members of CCEDNet or become members once its application for hosting work experience participants is approved. (For information about being a CCEDNet member, click here.)
How to apply?
Visit our website (http://www.ccednet-rcdec.ca/en/our_work/youth/createaction) for more information and application details. Deadline for host organizations to submit an application is July 20th, 2009, 12:00 pm Pacific Standard Time.
For more information, please contact Kezia Cowtan at kcowtan@ccednet-rcdec.ca or phone toll free at 1-877-202-2268, ext. 105.
Questions? Comments? Ideas? Contact Kezia Cowtan, our BC/Yukon Regional Coordinator at kcowtan@ccednet-rcdec.ca