My friend Peter Kenyon in Australia at The Bank of IDEAS alerted me to an initiative being launched in Canada this year. Tamarack will start a three year campaign called, “A Thousand Conversations to Shape our Future.” Through this campaign Tamarack hope to raise the concept of ‘community’ in the minds of people across the country and to gain insights that will help in the creation of policy and programming suggestions to support and build capacity within these communities.
This will be done by creating a national dialogue on community. Tamarack believe that if people strengthen and deepen their community experience, we will be better able to respond creatively to the challenges we face and build a better future.
There are three stages to the campaign:
Stage 1: The conversation (Have fun) – Tamarack will mobilise a thousand faith groups, neighbourhoods, service clubs, cultural hubs and schools across Canada to have a conversation about community. To make this easier they have created a conversation guide to walk groups through a deepening and impactful dialogue. They will then ask those groups to share those conversations on their project website: seekingcommunity.ca.
Stage 2: Sharing with each other (Take care of each other) Tamarack will share the insights and inspiring stories that come out of these conversations with all the groups involved through monthly updates.
Stage 3: Creating policy and programming (Work for a better world): In the final stage Tamarack will put the conversations into groups based on common themes (e.g., health, food, neighbourhood space). Once in these themed groups Tamarack will analyse them and look for patterns.
At this point, Tamarack will engage thought leaders in these sectors to also evaluate these conversations and give their feedback. Based on all of this Tamarack will then make policy and program recommendations to the relevant organisations and governments.
Tamarack, “an institute for community engagement” is a charity that “develops and supports learning communities to help people collaborate and to co-generate knowledge that solves complex community challenges”.
For more information email Derek Alton.
