In the Spring of 2010, SCARPie Sarah Gillett coordinated a group of youth who planned the first of a series of community dinners in the Victoria/Fraserview neighbourhood. This dinner was the beginning of a larger effort to build community capacity through youth engagement in the neighbourhood. As a result of this dinner, one of the youth participants now plays the role of coordinator and the group is in the process of planning their next dinner and considering how to expand their efforts. As part of Sarah’s involvement in this project, she completed a directed studies that examined innovative evaluation techniques that could be applied to youth engagement and community capacity projects.
Background
The Engaging Neighbourhoods Initiative is a partnership between the UBC Learning Exchange, the United Way and the Vancouver Board of Education. The goal of the project is to build community capacity in two Vancouver neighbourhoods to better serve middle year youth. My part in it was to focus specifically on the role of youth engagement in building community capacity. In one of the neighbourhoods there was a strong desire to build more relationships and trust in the community. From this desire was born the idea of having a group of youth plan a series of community dinners to help kick off the larger community effort.
Goals
The goals of the project were to: build local youth’s capacity, to connect people in the community to resources and networks, to build trust in the community and to better serve the neighbourhoods middle year population through building community capacity.
Accomplishments
The first dinner allowed youth to take a leadership role in planning and implementing a community project. As a result they made many new connections and discovered new resources in the community. The project exposed many youth who had never been involved in community work before to a youth leadership experience. Many community members attended the dinner including many middle year youth and their families. Many commented on how happy they were to have an opportunity to interact with their neighbours in an informal setting. As a result of the dinner, one of the partner organizations was able to start up a new program at one of the other partners sites. After the dinner, one of the youth organizers took over Sarah’s position as coordinator and has started planning the next dinner with a new group of youth.
Observations
This dinner is only the beginning of a larger community capacity building project. For the project to be self sustaining there is a continued need for leadership training and support for the youth organizers so that they can maintain the momentum that was created by the first dinner. This project was an excellent experience for Sarah to facilitate a process where she was teaching and creating space for others to plan, but whether she will have succeeded to make that effort self-sustaining remains to be seen!
