Community Engagement Program and Toolkit
How might we help newcomers of all backgrounds create meaningful relationship outside of their cultural community of origin?
This team is developing a Cross-Cultural Toolkit: a collection of resources and supports for anyone (event organizers, facilitators, community leaders, government representatives, business leaders, etc.) to meaningfully help people connect across cultural differences. The prototype’s initial aim was to engage newcomers at existing events through a series of cross-cultural activities designed to lower barriers and increase the ease of conversation across cultural differences. Their user was initially defined as a newcomer spouse, who they found to take longer to integrate as they are often not engaged in the workforce, but who have an equal say in whether the couple/family will stay in NB.
STATUS: Ongoing
UPDATE: The team has completed 4 events in the Fredericton community and are actively developing their toolkit. Ideally this toolkit will be shareable with other communities and integrated into myriad events and trainings. As part of their toolkit, The Living Library concept was born: a place where people are given the opportunity to share their stories as ‘human books’. For the Community Engagement team they focused on newcomer stories at their June 21st Living Library event at the Fredericton Public Library as a part of the Cultural Expressions Festival. The walkthrough traffic was excellent because of the overlap with this festival and the Fredericton street market, proving their strategy of overlapping with existing events was valid. Many attendees expressed satisfaction with the event.
TEAM MEMBERS
Diluckshnie Jayawardena - Regional Performance Director - Sitel
Leticia Leon de Gante - Local Immigration Partnership Fredericton
Lisa Bamford de Gante - Executive Director - Fredericton Multicultural Association
Sebastián Salazar - Urban Planner - City of Fredericton
Tiziana Zevallos - Student - St. Thomas University
Nicolas Bertrand - Owner - Steps2Canada
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