Viability & Demand

(VIABILITY)

The EOED pilot aims to strengthen community resilience over time. A resilient community is one that is connected and supportive, leaving no one behind. In times of distress and uncertainty, resilient communities support and encourage their residents, local businesses, and organizations by coming together and offering their skills, knowledge, and resources to best navigate these challenges and fluctuating circumstances.

HIGHLIGHTS

LOCAL SUPPORT & INTEREST

There has been much evidence indicating both strong community support of the program and interest in participating

in the future. Throughout the design phase of the pilot, emphasis was placed on how the EOED support platform could foster new connections across different parts of the neighbourhood. For example, we know that MNFC provides a safe and welcoming space for Indigenous community members to be together and learn, and part of our aim was to draw new people into the centre who may otherwise not feel welcome, or that they have a reason to do so. Similarly, we intentionally established a network of community spaces that could invite and encourage diverse individuals and groups to connect across different parts of the neighbourhood. Over the course of the pilot, there were many instances of local organizations reaching out to project team members, with offers to support and collaborate. After one particular session, a host who is also involved in the youth social enterprise where the session was hosted offered to donate flower boxes for a future session that could later be placed throughout the community. On another occasion a volunteer from a local screen printing shop who attended a session on mask making expressed interest in partnering on creative projects and hosting at their neighbouring organization.

At the neighborhood level, local organizations provided space, staff support, and expressed an overall willingness to help in whatever ways they could. Around the time that local health officials announced a Covid-19 circuit breaker, a manager at the North End Library reached out to see if we needed any additional support with transitioning sessions to online.

- Project Team member

A local business owner spoke about the diversity of the community and said that being a part of this project gave them an opportunity to connect with residents in the community who they knew were there but were unable to reach. They continued by emphasizing the importance of partnerships in making this happen. EOED has the potential to strengthen community resiliency, providing there is an awareness of how the community operates and a deep understanding of what residents view as important or beneficial. This deep-seated process takes time and will be a major determining factor to the project’s overall success. Therefore, community endorsement and support of the program by residents as well as local business and organizations is imperative.

Shortly after the public launch of the EOED pilot, and as momentum grew around the work, the Program Director, sometimes alongside another team member, engaged in 4 media interviews and 8 presentations/gatherings related to different themes. After one conversation with an inter-cultural design class at NASCAD, a student reached out with a visual interpretation of EOED that resonated deeply with project staff.

I am an international student from NSCAD. You gave a lecture on the Every One Every Day activity in our professor Leslie’s class last month. This is a great organization and activity. I stayed in the city of NS for two years. At the beginning, the unfamiliar environment, culture and language often made me feel lonely and fearful of communication. Seeing such activities made me feel a lot of the warmth and friendliness of this city. - Community member

This program allowed me to connect with residents that I knew were there but was unable to connect with.

- Host

Even just the opportunity to visit spaces in the neighbourhood. I’ve lived in the North End for more than 10 years and have never been inside the Friendship Centre. - Participant

Cultivating A Strong Team: The development of the EOED pilot surfaced high demands around individual and collective learning related to participatory frameworks and approaches, resident co-design, developmental evaluation, and more - each of which needed to be adapted and applied on the ground, in real time. This requirement around the quick application of learning was felt in different ways across different stakeholder groups, each working to advance the work with varying lenses, and at different points within the system. In the case of the project team, much of this learning was self-directed, or developed through conversations and coaching with the Participatory City Tutors.

The one-on-one discussions and coaching time that was provided by the PC Tutors was extremely helpful - particularly for such a massive undertaking of creating our first newspaper, which involved so much learning as we went.

- Project Team member

The Project Team zoned in on elements of co-design with residents, communications, modelling participatory practices, and project evaluation. The challenges to learn and act quickly at this level were felt among team members and exacerbated by varying start dates and degrees of training, and varying degrees of comfort with the technical and administrative requirements for managing a high degree of logistics and one-on-one relationships with residents. Among the SG, co-learning was centered around the city-level application of this work and the discovery of how the PC approach and learning model could best integrate into existing structures and systems. The SG was also deeply invested in working together to understand how reconciliation could be practiced through a lens of governance - both of which present opportunities for future learning and application.

SUPPORT & CAPACITY ACROSS LEVELS

The SG also provided extra support and capacity for the work, which manifested through different forms and relationships. Some SG members provided funding or resource support such as graphic design, others made key connections to potential partners and infrastructure, and some provided support and capacity building for EOED project staff. Specifically, two of the EOED project staff were part time, and shared across MNFC and two different partner organizations (also SG members). While these staffing structures posed some challenges related to extra layers of logistics and administration, and project staff needing to navigate different organizational demands and cultures, these relationships directed significant support and capacity to the project team, and reflected a deep commitment to co-learning and development around this work. All of these teams worked at different times and in different ways, with Participatory Canada, the PC Foundation, and local teams in Toronto and Montreal in an effort to build collective understanding around a national approach. This work is, and will continue to be, influenced by the different lenses and organizational contexts represented by all those involved and throughout the pilot, the commitment of multiple influential organizations has enabled a strong network of support that can serve the ongoing development of this work in very beneficial ways.

Having some staff at MNFC and some at United Way and Inspiring Communities, while explainable, had some challenges in terms of team cohesion and structural integrity.

- Strategic Group member

KEY INSIGHTS

• Local organizations and businesses appeared to support and encourage the unique vision of EOED, many of whom suggested different ideas and opportunities for future collaboration. • Strategic Group members provide a critical role and support structure that can help to mobilize partners and champions, support resource and capacity development, and enhance the integration of the EOED platform into existing systems and structures. • EOED is, at its core, a learning model that requires a strong framework to enable on-going learning and capacity buliding within and across multiple teams and stakeholders. It is critical that a thoughtful and supportive approach to learning be cultivated and resourced.

FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS

• Develop a comprehensive learning framework that can support diverse stakeholder groups to engage in multiple and overlapping learning domains such as participatory culture, developmental evaluation, systems integration, and the advancement of reconciliation. • Dedicate time and resources towards team building and facilitated dialogues that can help to ground team members in different personalities and cultural contexts that influence working styles and relationships. • Evaluate and further define how the SG and decision makers can further integrate the work of reconciliation and specifically how this informs processes of learning, planning, and resource development.