The United Nations Association in Canada (UNA-Canada) INTEGRATION & BELONGING Preliminary Report November 2004 Community Capacity Building: From Dialogue to Action Planning Social cohesion requires more than simply tolerance among citizens; it requires public discourse and the assurance of cultural freedoms as basic human rights. It is the necessity for the development of the increasingly diverse societies of the 21 st century. The United Nations believes that if the world is to reach the Millennium Development Goals, and ultimately eradicate poverty, it must first successfully confront the challenge of how to build inclusive, culturally diverse societies states Kathryn White, Executive Director at UNA-Canada.
UNA-Canada Launches Timely Integration & Belonging Initiative The United Nations Association in Canada (UNA-Canada), with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage, launched a new initiative, Integration & Belonging, October 2004. In five city sessions in Calgary (Alberta), Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), St. John s (Newfoundland), Kingston (Ontario) and Montreal (Québec), a youth workshop and community roundtable are engaging youth, emerging and identified community leaders in a series of workshops to provide an open platform for participants to discuss the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in a multicultural society. Calgary was a success and I am looking forward to the next steps. The youth participants were amazing and I was impressed by their energy and critical thinking skills. The community roundtable was great as well, from a local perspective I would have to say that we were able to bring together a diverse group and from my experience it was not the standard crowd that I would normally see at events like this and that was a refreshing change (Marie Jurcevic Calgary local liaison) Integration & Belonging engages Canadians of different backgrounds, different regions, religions, or occupations, willing to engage each other in discourse about the social arrangements which hold us together and order our lives. By bringing all Canadians to the table, this uniquely Canadian initiative will develop an innovative model, through a process of gathering best practices and lessons learned, that will be used to define, understand and promote integration and belonging and strengthen our communities.
Statistics Canada s most recent surveys and data on ethnic diversity, immigrants to Canada and religious and visible minority groups, evoke a need for further investigation of integration & belonging by groups or communities falling in the category of visible and religious minorities in Canada. Our social fabric must be resilient if we are to withstand threats. Whether the result of events following September 11 and the ensuing war on terror ; SARS and its risk of profiling potential disease carriers ; HIV/AIDS or other new risks that don t respect borders, these have introduced threats to the fabric of Canadian society and the psyche of Canadian citizens and instigated fear and mistrust of immigrant or minority communities. This has been made manifest through increased racial attacks from property and hate crimes to community division and fear. "Diversity is really important because we need it to make our world better, "It's almost scary. You turn on the news and see all these horrible things people do. I really wish (people) would embrace diversity." The students helped build the new charter by discussing discrimination and studying the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One of the ideas presented was to study the English language and identify words which are discriminatory and eliminate their use. (Melissa McLaughlin, a Grade 8 student at Bob Edwards) Canada s past experiences and process of treating distinct groups in times of crisis - for example, internment of Ukrainian Canadians (1914-1920), Japanese (during WWII) questions the meaning of being a Canadian, and in spite of key steps taken by the government to recognize and remedy the injustice of the past, there is a need currently to examine the potential risks that could upset the very essence of our Canadian identity. This project combining youth education and community outreach will produce strategies for building capacity of all citizens regardless of age, race or creed, to ask these important questions. We want a Canada with strong social foundations, where people are treated with dignity, where they are given a hand when needed, where no one is left behind. Where Canadians families and communities have the tools to find local solutions to local problems. (Speech from the Throne, 2004)
Youth Education and Community Outreach Each session has a two pronged approach a youth workshop and a community roundtable. At the youth workshop, a grade 9 class is engaged through workshops, group discussions, and the creation of a classroom charter of Integration & Belonging to promote integration and diversity. Two youth representatives are selected to attend the community roundtable, bringing forth their action plans and workshop findings, and engaged as full partners in community leadership and decision-making. Attention has been given to schools that have a range of students representing visible and religious minority communities. This process will culminate with the gathering of explicit information regarding the thoughts of young people and the creation of youth manuals to address the issues rose in the workshop. The community roundtable portion takes place over 1 1 2 days and includes invited community leaders, identified for their existing commitment to the issues at hand. The session moves from issue identification, discussion of best practices, to community action planning. Roughly 12-15 emerging community leaders who have been identified by the community, through faith groups, civil society, and local NGO s have been approached to participate. Participants are not necessarily those with an already confirmed high-profile status, but also from the next generation of emerging leaders ready to take on the task of leading the community to a more integrated society. Reaching youth in their safe and comfortable environments will help to open up safe and less intimidating space to speak freely about issues such as isolation, integration, safety issues they may not feel comfortable addressing with older members of their own communities. This program will elicit honest and directed knowledge, which will then be fed through to the community roundtables for further probing and action. We believe this inter-generation process will enhance the outcomes and lead to a more comprehensive and integrated project. The youth brought a sense of hope and integrity to the table that was unparalleled, and the adults nicely seasoned that with experience (Angela Korchinski Saskatoon local liaison)
An integral part of this project is the creation and engagement of a group of local liaisons who live and work within each of the five cities. These committed and dynamic individuals assisted tremendously in the identification of participants, the logical planning, facilitating and will plan accordingly for each city sustainability measures. Outcomes: Towards a Comprehensive Model for Social Cohesion The outcomes of Integration & Belonging include the identification of key players and the creation of community-based leadership networks, support and resources, and trained youth leaders knowledgeable and confident to engage in finding solutions to emerging problems. Firstly, the identification of youth leaders creates action in the school environments and also acts as a liaison with the larger community. Secondly, a clearly identified network of Canadian community leaders, consisting of participants of the youth and community meetings from all 5 communities, will identify the practice of integrating Canadians into a more understanding society, who can deal with emerging issues to build community resilience. Reports from the data collected through the five community sessions provide in-depth analysis including current perspective of risks and barriers, identifying strengths and gaps on citizen integration and today s understanding of unity and diversity in Canada s communities. Resource manuals for youth and community leaders will be created as tools for reaching out and bridging communities and youth towards community social cohesion. Both community and youth leaders are developing Community Action Plans and follow-up activities for on-going engagement in issues of integration and belonging. Lastly, an interactive website has been designed to encourage contribution of views from youth, teachers and general public, to enhance on-going dialogue that is within a safe open space. I have an overall positive impression of the roundtable discussions because it offered an opportunity for various members of the community to come together and learn about how many like-minded people, organizations and agencies there are in Saskatoon. (Haleh Samimi, Saskatoon community roundtable participant)
In February of 2005, the project will culminate in a national workshop in Ottawa. This workshop will bring together representatives, selected by and from each of the participating communities together with representatives of national organizations with interest in integration and belonging. The workshop will be an opportunity to share the community and youth action plans, follow up activities, initial findings and analysis from the regional workshops This workshop will assist communities in refining their action plans and follow-up activities when they return to their regions. UNA-Canada is best placed to offer such space to bring together members from different communities to one, equal and equitable table to share realities and perceptions. As a perceived neutral ground, where mediation and understanding are seen as integral to the United Nations and its philosophy, UNA-Canada has in the past, and will continue to act as a bridging organization, striving to create a common space for a diverse representation of our Canadian society. The concluding national workshop will fully engage participants from the target groups and encourage them to make commitments to mid and longer term follow-ups, such as the commitment to their action plans, integration of the resource manuals into their own work, and to lend their resources to support for the nascent network of new community and youth leadership. Update: Findings to date As of November 5, 2004, three of the five city sessions have been completed. Here is a snapshot of the findings thus far. In Canada, respect for cultural diversity has come to exist and rest on three key pillars: linguistic duality, recognition of Aboriginal peoples rights and multiculturalism. We must still, however, debate and decide how to respect such cultural diversity while maintaining the cohesion necessary to sustain Canada into the 21 st century. Visible minorities and newcomers to Canada often encounter racial and discriminatory barriers that impede their integration into the Canadian society. Consequently, it is harder to find adequate jobs and live in good conditions. It has been stresses that racism can occur on an
individual level and on a systemic level. Both have a direct negative impact on their social integration and sense of belonging. Such barriers are: Systemic racism and discrimination against minorities (Aboriginal, Visible, Immigrants and Refugees, Gender, GLBT); Stereotypes, prejudice and biases; Economic (employment), housing and health conditions; Access to services; Education and learning; Fear; Intergenerational conflict; Lack of resources, support and opportunity for civic participation (partnerships, networks, institutions) Institutional and social pressures; Culture & Language; Complexity of various realities; Lack of vision; Creating a socially safe environment is a multi-faceted and complex process that involves a range of policy fields, from education to health, housing, urban planning and job creation. Central to the process seems to be the capacity of institutions at the local level to facilitate the integration of new immigrants and minority groups into the labour market while also ensuring access to social services, language training and education. Also essential is the creation of a public space, such as these roundtables, where marginalized people can build their social networks and participate in the cultural and political life of the community. Ultimately, however, the decisions about improving and sustaining local cohesion come down to the kinds of choices that policy makers and social reformers are making. Now we live in a society more information-based than industrial, more open to the winds of cultural diversity than ever, and in many cases suffering from a lack of cohesion and a global vision. It has been clearly identified that we must now and again have such a basic but crucial conversation about the ties that bind us together. Therefore, the challenge we face today, is to nurture the diversity model. The model must be sustained and adapted to the new realities to develop a stronger society. There is a need for increased institutions of democratic dialogue and engagement, both formal and informal, to find solutions to emerging challenges.
Doing so means that citizens, and residents, must be allowed to communicate among themselves and to their representatives any concerns they feel about integration and their sense of belonging. They must be able to make their own choices about whom to support and under what conditions. There must be a space for the expression of skepticism as well as enthusiastic support within our own society. Organizational expertise The United Nations Association of Canada is uniquely placed to implement and sustain this initiative since is a national organization entrusted to bring international issues to the local sphere. Through this Integration & Belonging project, we can model the power of bridging social capital at its most powerful and sustaining. Just entering our sixth decade of existence, we are the peoples movement for the UN and the voice of the people of Canada to the international community. The United Nations Association in Canada is a national not-for-profit charity with a fifty-eight-year history of educating Canadians about the UN and critical international issues which affect us all. UNA-Canada is a member-based bilingual organization, comprised of a national office in Ottawa and twelve regional branches and local groups across the country. United Nations Association in Canada is a 14,000 person strong, membership-based, charitable organization supporting a network of fifteen volunteer branches, a professional staff based in Ottawa, youth networks and a junior professionals at the UN programme, a Council of Organizations of other NGOs and home of the Canadian Corporate Leadership Council of the UN which seeks to support Canadian leadership in corporate social responsibility. Over the course of its existence, UNA-Canada has been involved in very successful partnerships with schools, youth, NGOs, federal and provincial government agencies, and the general public. Through these partnerships, UNA-Canada has developed an expertise in education and nationwide youth-based programming.