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Sustainability Action Areas

Currently we have sustainability activities underway in the following areas: agricultural land and food security, community resiliency and well-being, emergency response and community preparedness, energy, health care, housing and multi-level seniors care, sustainable economics: community currency, transportation priorities and actions, and water. To see what each group is up to click on the individual topic.

Community Resiliency and Well-Being

CONVENOR: Sandra Thomson

PARTICIPANTS: Sheila Malcolmson, Kathryn Molly, Sandra Thomson

YOUR IDEAS:

What do we mean by community resiliency and well-being? Ability to thrive in times of uncertainty, where it may be unpredictable how our systems are impacted and adapt to climate change, economic depression or oil scarcity.

Building trust and relationships; Sense of generosity and reciprosity; equity “your hunger and thirst is equal to my hunger and thirst”; It’s the glue, community cohesion.

What are some of the assets/strengths to support the issue? This Community Sustainability Plan; organizations such as GESS; Gabriolans for Food Security.

What’s needed? More connection and linkage between groups. Inventory and analysis of current situation (eg., food – how many people on Gabriola are growing their own food? How much is imported? How long can we last if something such as cut in ferry service happens?

Community Mapping Process – what are the skills (eg., growing and preserving food, wild food crafting, well drilling etc.), soft skills (facilitating,mentoring, building relationships, healthy practices for dealing with stress, insecurity), and knowledge (how to build stuff, make stuff, where are our community resources), yoga groups, choirs, commons, churches

Where can we look to for how to? Cuba, list of 200 occupations after peak oil, Bologna (CED built on principles of reciprosity and generosity);

Other issues – who should be the keeper of the knowledge? (eg., library) how to gather info (wiki tech)

Sustainable Gabriola Community Forum

The following is a summary of the discussion held at the October 24th Sustainable Gabriola Community Forum. There are many groups and individuals on the island contributing to this topic area and we would like to acknowledge that work. Please feel free to email us specific actions that have been accomplished and those that are underway and we will post them on the site. It is hoped that the following points from our October 24th discussion will build on the work that has been done.

October 24, 2009

Community Resilience and Well-Being

CONVENOR:

Sandra Thomson

PARTICIPANTS:

Jim Ramsay, Alice Verstraete, Veronica Hartman, John Shields, Dave Innell, Gabriel Silverfire, Lawrence Spero, Randy Young

Goal

To foster and strengthen community resilience and well-being on Gabriola

What does Community Resilience and Well-Being mean?

  • A sense of “community” that is more general and overarching, not just the “communities within communities” that exist for people with the groups that they are involved in (eg., music community, commons community, etc.)
  • It is changing and evolving – for eg., the elementary school used to be the heart of the community, but the numbers have shrunk over the last little while, although now they are increasing again.
  • Finding the overarching theme that brings all of the pieces together
  • Needs to be flexible in focus as the needs of the island change and shift
  • Bringing diverse opinions together
  • Must include the totality of community – including humans, ecosystems, wildlife, etc.
  • It means having processes to resolve conflicts in values that occur along the way
  • Supporting young families to be able to afford to live here
  • Tapping into the well-spring of strength and resiliency that our elders hold for us through their experiences of having lived here and in other communities.

Philosophical Questions/Concerns:

  • How do we learn to be less selfish? How do we let go of self interests, selfishness?
  • How do we teach future generation to make sustainable choices even if it means giving up personally for the community?
  • Some of the elements of CWB are integrated with other topics and themes
  • How do we address health concerns such as pandemic illnesses when they need to be addressed and/linked through other topics such as water, natural ecosystems, etc.
  • What is the relationship between the macro scale and the micro scale, especially when we talk about the concept of the “commons”?
  • What feeds our roots in the community and gives us strength?
  • Where are there models of some of these concepts?
  • How do we grasp the notion of a sense of community when we come as individuals with roots in other places? We might be here for different reasons (ie., to retire, to access more affordable housing market, to raise children in a rural setting, etc.).

Medium Term Actions:

  • OCP – Influence and broaden our existing planning mechanism to include elements of CWB
  • Support the Gabriola Health Care Society’s Community Well-Being survey – ensure that it is well designed so that we have baseline data specific to Gabriola, including health, happiness, trust, etc.
  • Seek ways to support those organizations already working to foster resiliency and well-being on Gabriola (the HOPE Centre, PHC, GHCS, The Commons) – financial support and volunteer support.
  • Seek ways to foster volunteerism and participation in the community.
  • Create opportunities for community dialogue on the concepts of CWB so that people personalize the issue and learn about the concept.
  • Develop public education around issues of importance for implementing Sustainable Gabriola actions (eg., footprint analysis or cost/benefits of buying local food)
  • Develop an overarching body for funding Gabriola needs (possibilities, Gabriola Foundation or through Sustainable Gabriola), with clear guidelines that it stay with a broad mandate

Resources

  • There are many seed examples where an issue was identified and a strong commitment was made by a group of individuals to see it through (eg., HOPE Centre, and The Commons)
  • Other models for community development or community economic development (such as article recently written about an analysis of the impact of providing base incomes to all (Veronica and Lawrence have read this)

Organizations/Individuals that Should be Involved:

  • The Commons
  • Hope centre
  • People for a Healthy Community
  • Gabriola Health Care Society
  • Yoga studios (such as Island of Peace)

Measuring Success

  • Number of smiles versus frowns
  • Ability of individuals to have the awareness to see the signs and indicators of all these intangible and invisible elements of our community.
  • Majority of people have a sense of connectedness, place and belonging
  • Number of volunteers has increased
  • Well designed well-being survey that has a good response rate and serves as a benchmark for measuring change