Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and our program partner, Empower Me, will deliver a program to address the unique challenges faced by the 16% of Calgary households living in energy poverty. Energy poverty is the experience of households or communities that struggle to pay to heat and power their homes. These lower income families live in inefficient homes, and spend a disproportionate amount on energy bills.
With the intention to launch the program in spring of 2022, Alberta Ecotrust and Empower Me will leverage established and emerging partner and support organizations, to provide energy efficiency education and upgrades to 100 or more households and present an approach for a long-term program.
The program will:
-Ensure equitable application process: prioritizing those most in need, the application process and strategy will target newcomers, immigrants, Indigenous communities, and single parents
-Build capacity by providing in-depth education (delivered in multiple languages) to residents to understand how their behavior can influence the cost of energy and impact on climate change, contributing to sustainable behaviour change
-Customize upgrades to ensure participating homes receive the most impactful upgrades to maximize the reduction in energy consumption
-Inclusive measures so that renters living with energy poverty also benefit
-Explore other funding opportunities to add value and possibly expand program reach
-Best practice research and outcome harvesting from past programs will provide data, learnings, and inform recommendations for a long term program that could be directly adopted and implemented, by the City of Calgary and inform program learnings for City of Edmonton
-Build awareness through communications and engagement, of the need in Alberta with other local, provincial, and federal governments and institutions.
Contemporary Calgary is renovating its Observatory and Auditorium in order to expand its available exhibition space and revitalize an under-utilized theatre.
Changes to the Observatory will allow Contemporary Calgary to offer additional exhibition opportunities to artists and curators while piloting an innovative programming model that is responsive to current events. While most exhibitions require one or more years of planning, programming in the Observatory will occur on a scale of months, and will be able to respond to important current events in a timely manner. Programming in the space will include both exhibitions and events—most notably discussion groups that will ensure the concepts presented in the exhibitions are throughly explored.
Auditorium renovations will transform a stage-less theatre into a highly functional space that will allow Contemporary Calgary to expand its own programming and to offer additional opportunities for community-based groups. Currently, the lack of a stage and curtains, along with poor sight lines from the seating prevent the frequent use of the theatre. A number of simple changes can transform the space into a useful community resource.
Together, these renovations will dramatically increase Contemporary Calgary’s ability to support artists and community in Calgary, and will help the organization become a destination for thought-provoking ideas and discussion in this city.
These projects are already partially funded and scheduled for completion by March 31, 2023 (Auditorium) and December 31, 2023 (Observatory). They are one phase of a larger, overall renovation project that will develop Contemporary Calgary into a bustling hub in Calgary’s downtown west end. These projects are a priority within the overall renovation scheme because of their potential to expand our capacity to support new exhibitions and community-based events, and because of their overall impact on Contemporary Calgary’s ability to carry out its mandate while building community.
The Safety of Indigenous Women in Urban Settings (SIWUS) is a collective of agencies and stakeholders (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) in Calgary who have come together to provide support to Indigenous women and girls who are victims of family and domestic violence. By addressing the systemic barriers and challenges this high-risk population encounters on a daily basis, the intent is to empower women and girls to reduce their risk of vulnerability to violence. In establishing new partnerships and leveraging existing ones, the SIWUS will provide individuals with wrap-around services, navigation, and case management through a network of relevant agencies and organizations.
Wood’s Homes is embarking on a multi-year Revitalization project that will increase capacity by 26 beds (Stage 1: 10 beds at Parkdale Campus; Stage 2: 16 beds at Bowness Campus – Phoenix building; Stage 3: rebuild additional existing Bowness Campus cottages) in live-in Therapeutic Campus Based Care (TCBC) programs. Wood’s Homes is seeking funding from Calgary Foundation for Stage 1 and 2 of this project. Construction for Stage will begin in April of 2023 and Stage 2 will begin in the spring on 2024. This Revitalization Project creates an opportunity for Wood’s Homes to not only respond to the growing demand for youth and mental health care but to also create spaces that better support healing and recovery.
Youth served in TCBC programs have a history of significant trauma, mental health challenges, abuse, and/or neglect. Without intervention, many of these youth face a lifetime of hospitalization, incarceration, addiction, and/or homelessness.
Six decades ago, when many of Wood’s Homes live-in treatment programs were designed and built, “troubled” children were simply housed. Today, we know so much more about the impact of environment on a person’s mental health. This project is not simply about new and expanded buildings, it is not just a holding place a place of restoration for our clients. We have worked with mental health experts, families, and Indigenous leaders to design healing spaces for the children and youth we serve. Mental health experts know clients need more. And we know they deserve more.
The outcome for Wood’s Homes clients is improved mental health and a greater sense of belonging and purpose. The outcome for the community is reduced economic cost to society as we reduce hospitalizations, incarcerations, addictions, and homelessness. With new living, therapy and social spaces, our inter-disciplinary teams will be able to provide effective delivery of services to support the return of children and youth to their home environment – family, foster care, or community-based supported living.
The collective strategically supported the community through the pandemic, and now provides continuing care supports post COVID. This unique approach to delivering programs and services is geared towards removing barriers and empowering individuals. The collective maintains it’s Indigenous based framework and strategy ( attached for context) to ensure cultural relevancy and safety. Our goal is to address the following key areas : basic needs , food security and provide cultural reconnection opportunities. The Seven Brothers Circle membership operates on a ‘pooling’ resources and coordinated approach to meeting the need of the community. During the requested timeframe, we hope to achieve the following: 1) Identifying immediate needs of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit people living within the Treaty 7 territory of Alberta. Post COVID – Continuing Care Supports. 2) Coordinate and connect the efforts of front-line agencies, partners, funders, and advisors to meet the needs of Indigenous community members. 3) Joint funding applications for new program development addressing existing gaps in services. 4) Create Orientation/Recruitment package, ie. ‘Creation Story’ 5) Elder consultations and guidance. 6) Utilization of the community network to spread information of important current events, community updates, and new programming and supports. 7) Holistic evaluation of the wellbeing, engagement, and success of Indigenous community members, and sharing information on any programming gaps or successes with the collaboration to improve community .
The mental health and wellness of racialized and newcomers’ communities has been ActionsDignity’s focus in the past 10 years. Through its various programs (SHARE and INDIE) and participatory research, ActionDignity has provided an ethnocultural and racial lens focused on experiences of racialized community members in accessing mental health services. This project aims at improving the mental health experiences of racialized communities through transformative and systemic collaboration. Guided by systemic goals achievement theory of change and informed by the Water of Systems Change1 model, it seeks to work with formal institutions, service providers, community partners, service users and grassroot organizations to address the 6 conditions identified by the Water of Systems Change model. It will challenge the dominant paradigm of Calgary’s approach to addressing mental health and wellness of its vulnerable populations and push for a comprehensive approach on mental health that must include structural changes in policy, practices and resource flow; improve collaborations by addressing dynamics of power among and between partners. ActionDignity will capitalize on its existing structures: Platform strategy and Broker model. ActionDignity anchors the shared Platform by convening and connecting members, creating opportunities for transformative capacity building and mobilizing resources for community action plans. It will support the engagement of partners and stakeholders, tease out the system through actor, trends and systems mapping and analysis to create a shared understanding and agenda. Imagine a Mental Health Orchestra wherein the mental health systems are composed of diverse players – service providers, mental health professionals and groups working in harmony by playing different roles in the system. The project will explicitly put racism and its various intersections that produce and reproduce racial trauma as central to its success. Thus, the history of slavery, colonization and racism will be considered, and their impact on policies, practices and present-day narratives of mental health addressed through transformative collaboration and continuous quality learning over the project duration and beyond. Research and strong ethnic and mainstream media engagement strategy will be employed as mechanisms for systematic transformation of current mental models and tools for education and anti-oppressive and anti-racist practices.
The Calgary African Community Collective is a Black-led not for profit umbrella organization that is focused on policy advocacy and systems change. Through this initiative, CACC will mobilize resources, interest and partnerships to create the conditions to tackle generational poverty and inequity that have marginalized our communities. Guided by the Nguzo Saba Principles, CACC aspires to shift the dynamics of power and effect change by empowering our grassroots and associations through knowledge mobilization, research, adaptive capacity building and systems thinking. CACC will facilitate its member organizations to tackle the poverty in the Black communities through a framework that will allow them to look beyond income and include programs and services to fully integrate people into the society regardless of their situation.
Funding support for youth programming as recommended by participants in Youth and Philanthropy Initiative students at Sir Wilfred Laurier School
General charitable activity as recommended by participants in Youth and Philanthropy Initiative students at Sir Wilfred Laurier School