[Toronto, ON - October 12, 2023] – Community members are invited to join a day of ‘Social Prescribing for Human Connection’ events across Ontario to support community engagement and combat the issue of social isolation.
Healthier Community Builders work in partnership and cooperation with others to create the conditions for everyone to achieve their best possible health and wellbeing. We put the spotlight on these local heroes to bring their work into wider discussions of what it means to build healthier communities. This week, the spotlight is on community gardening at North Hamilton CHC.
Over nearly a decade working as a health promoter at Bridges Community Health Centre in the south of Niagara Region, Lori Kleinsmith has driven herself and others to find ways to impact public policy to support health and wellbeing.
Healthier Community Builders are people who work in partnership and cooperation with others to create the conditions for everyone to achieve their best possible health and wellbeing. They could be staff or volunteers at an Alliance member centre, or even a board member from the community. Or perhaps they are a partner who works more widely, but whose work intersects with health and wellbeing, such as a coach, community organizer, or local leader.
On May 9, Country Roads Community Health Centre celebrated 30 years of exceptional primary health care in rural Southeastern Ontario. The occasion was marked with live music (with Executive Director Marty Crapper throwing down some mean bass alongside local musician Melanie Weber), a shared meal, and some poignant reflections by community members and leaders. People shared stories of helping to steward the CHC from humble roots – half a day a week in a single room – into the hub of community-governed comprehensive primary health care that it is today.
Qu’est-ce qui fait d’une communauté une communauté? On évoque souvent nos espaces partagés, nos valeurs partagées, nos histoires communes. Or, le soutien aux autres, le respect de divers horizons et points de vue, ainsi que l’appropriation et la participation partagées aux institutions civiques ne sont pas moins importantes. Qu’ont en commun les communautés? Les crises nous amènent souvent à agir collectivement, sachant que nous sommes plus que la somme de nos parties quand nous unissons nos efforts.
What makes a community, a community? Our shared spaces, shared values, common histories – those are often mentioned. Support for others, a respect for diverse backgrounds and viewpoints, and shared ownership of and participation in civic institutions – those are no less important. What’s common among communities? Crises will often bring us together to act collectively, knowing that we are more than the sum of our parts when we act as one. Other things – a factory or school closing, or instances of racism – might drive us further apart while also revealing fault lines in our bonds.
The latest Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) national report is a scathing indictment of our collective inability to address one of the greatest issues of our time – namely, the widening gap between the growth of the Gross Domestic Product and the wellbeing of everyday Canadians. In the span of just six years, this ‘health divide’ increased from 21 per cent in 2008 to more than 28 per cent in 2014.