July 2009

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In This Issue

Profile: The Craik Sustainable Living Project

In 2001, the Town of Craik and the Rural Municipality of Craik, located in south central Saskatchewan, decided that they wanted to make sustainable living a priority.  Though the population consists of 408 people, they partnered together to create a long-term community-based sustainability project that could serve as an example for other communities.  The project comprises four main initiatives: an Eco-Centre demonstration building; Community Outreach and Education; Community Action; and, Eco-village development.

The Eco-centre is an innovative 6000 square foot multi-purpose building that provides indoor and outdoor educational demonstration of sustainable practices.  Built with recycled timbers and straw bale insulation, the building is energy efficient and incorporates renewable energy systems. Heating for the building includes solar power, a Finish-style solid fuel masonry oven, integrated solar hot water, and geo-thermal.  It also features recycled rainwater and composting toilets.

The Community Outreach and Education component includes informative sessions on climate change, renewable energy technologies, ecology, sustainable living and land use and are designed for all members of the community, both young and old.

The third component of the project, Community Action, was created to educate members of the community about ways to reduce their ecological footprint. These include energy efficient appliances, retrofitting of public and private buildings, improving water management, use of alternative energy and building methods, recycling programs, improved transportation options and local food production.


Canadian CED Network News

Canadian CED Network Endorses “Dignity For All Campaign”

Dignity for All is a multi-year, multi-partner, non-partisan campaign. This campaign’s vision is to make a poverty-free and more socially secure and cohesive Canada a reality by 2020. The conviction behind this campaign is that Canadians must respect and defend the right of every person to dignity and security.

Everyone has a role to play in building a poverty-free and more socially secure Canada – governments at all levels, businesses of all sizes and types, community and other civil society organizations, and individuals. The federal government, with its particular policymaking, legislative, taxation and redistributive powers, has an especially critical role. The Dignity for All Campaign is therefore aimed primarily to achieve federal action.

The campaign has three goals:
  1. A comprehensive, integrated federal plan for poverty elimination:
  2. A federal Act to eliminate poverty, promote social inclusion and strengthen social security:
  3. Sufficient federal revenue to invest in social security:
Read more about the Campaign, and sign up yourself and/or your organization in support of Dignity For All.

Participation Opportunity - Immigrant Settlement and Social Enterprise

The Immigrant Settlement and Integration through Social Enterprise (ISISE) project aims to illustrate that social enterprise is a highly useful model in assisting immigrants integrate into Canada.

An essential first step for the project is surveying immigrant social enterprises and organizations that support immigrant social enterprise development, to discover practices organizations identify as central to their mission.

Survey for Social Enterprises

Survey for Organizations that Support Immigrant SE Development

Survey Deadline August 10, 2009.

To complete the survey by phone, please contact Nicole Rosenow-Redhead, ISISE Project Researcher 1-877-202-2268, ext.104 or nrosenow@ccednet-rcdec.ca

Emerging Leaders in the Social Economy Research Scholarship

The Canadian Social Economy Hub is inviting proposals for research scholarships from practitioners and students under 30 who are working in the Social Economy. This scholarship program is intended to promote original research by “emerging leaders” in the Social Economy that will advance knowledge for the sector.

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.

Deadline for proposals is September 15, 2009.
More info

Northern CED News

Survey - Impacts and Importance of Social Economy Groups in the North

The northern research partnership coordinated by the Territorial Colleges and the Arctic Health Research Network for the Northwest Territories in collaboration with Lakehead University is currently conducting a follow up survey to further examine the impacts and importance of social economy groups in the North. We want to invite relevant groups to participate in an ongoing research project that is developing this inventory of Social Economy organizations in northern Canada. More information

CED Tool

Community-Government Collaborations on Policy: A How-To Manual

There has been growing interest in recent years in place-based interventions and their unique contribution to tackling complex issues.  Place-based strategies seek to achieve a desired objective through interventions in the neighbourhoods and communities where people live.  Increasingly, however, place-based interventions are also trying to influence relevant public policies. To better understand how communities and government could collaborate on policy, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy hosted a year-long community of practice focused on this issue.

The purpose of the Community of Practice was to develop an effective policy monitoring process that could be undertaken regularly by communities, and to create an information-rich guide to successful collaboration on policy, through the lens of poverty reduction. The learning, tools and experiences from this process have been synthesized in Collaboration on Policy Manual, a guide that helps community practitioners and government officials in working to design policy solutions to complex problems.

Download the Manual

Via tamarackcommunity.ca

National CED News

A Healthy, Productive Canada

In June, the Senate Subcommittee on Population Health issued its final report.  Recognizing that health is largely determined by factors outside the health care system (such as income, education, housing, the physical and social environment, early childhood development and personal health practices — known as the determinants of health) this report focuses on the need for governments to adopt a whole-of-government approach, breaking down departmental and programmatic silos and supporting communities to take action.  Community economic development and the social economy are specifically identified as effective strategies for coordinated action on the determinants of health, and the report mentions CCEDNet members such as the Learning Enrichment Foundation in Toronto and Quint Development Corporation in Saskatoon. 

Download the report

Pre-Budget Consultations 2009

The Canadian CED Network encourages members to contact us for support in advancing the Communities Agenda if they intend to present before the committee.

Complete News Release with Dates and Locations

CCPA Study on IE in Canada

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.

Registration Open - Third Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise

Living Our Values: Social Enterprise in Action
Join hundreds of existing and prospective social enterprise operators from every region in Canada at the Third Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise taking place in Toronto, November 18-20, 2009.

The conference will consist of three days of training and work sessions toward a national policy agenda and action plan.

Register now at www.secouncil.ca

European Commission Study on Practices and Policies in the Social Enterprise Sector in Europe

The study aims to describe key features of the social enterprise sector and to identify and present relevant support measures in 31 European countries, select and present good practices in the promotion of social enterprises and to derive and discuss conclusions concerning the further promotion of the sector.

Canada Revenue Agency Guidance on Fundraising by Canadian charities

CRA has just released its Guidance on Fundraising. globalphilanthropy.ca calls it “the most important guidance that CRA has provided in the last five years and the most important guidance on fundraising ever”.

 

Question about starting, growing or managing your social enterprise?

Join the official listserv of the Social Enterprise Council of Canada, a bilingual community dedicated to sharing practical advice, resources and information for and about Canadian social enterprises.

Your questions posted to the forum will go out to all members across the country. Any member can respond with an answer, and all members see and benefit from these responses.

To join, send a blank email to CSE-ESC-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

Rural Leaders Create a Vision for Rural Canada

Healthy and vibrant rural communities are an essential part of Canada’s future. That is the consensus of 800 rural leaders from across Canada. Their report, One Vision, Many Voices: How to Build a Sustainable Rural Canada outlines a comprehensive set of priorities for action – spanning governance, infrastructure, economy and environment – that they say are needed to ensure the sustainability of our rural communities. The report suggests that current thinking that fragments the realities of rural and urban Canada is counterproductive. Instead, our rural leaders have issued a call to all Canadians to work together to create a healthy and vibrant nation with a greater appreciation for our interdependency.

Learn more about building sustainable rural communities by reading the report

Job Postings

For the latest CED postings visit the National and Regional job pages on CCEDNet's website

National | AB | SK | MB | North

Positions to post? Send them to breimer@ccednet-rcdec.ca

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