April 20, 2010
Last Friday, I attended the third annual Community Action Forum, hosted by the Social Planning Council of Kitchener-Waterloo and sponsored by the Mayor.
These are open space meetings where participants create the agenda around a broad theme, facilitate the break-out groups, and generally allow the side conversations usually reserved for coffee breaks to happen throughout the forum as they see fit. The goal of the forum is to take those discussions and have participants to undertake some form of action, either great or small, in the upcoming year.
Last year, the theme was fostering greater inclusion in our city, and I co-initiated a discussion on stigma around mental health and inclusive language. Actions included surveys about city improvements, a discussion series for students and community members, and a forum on age-friendly cities that has led to a vibrant Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Seniors.
This year, the theme was making our city more livable. Picking up on the discussion from last year, I initiated a discussion on how to open up space to discuss the biases we each bring to our understanding of inclusion so that we can engage better in these discussions.
It attracted a fairly large group, and what I took away from the conversation was that people often have trouble identifying the right language to use, that they often feel ostracized when they get it wrong, and that they then feel that they don’t want to try again. Provided the intent of the person was well-meaning, I came away with the sense that we need to let people fail more gracefully and honourably. We should help each other find better language by having respectful conversations when mistakes are made rather than ostracizing and excluding those who are making an honourable effort at being inclusive.
Other topics discussed included issues of accessibility of Uptown businesses, greater community education of issues surrounding homophobia, tackling stigma, and building community in Northdale where everyone feels included. That latter discussion seemed timely, as the Northdale vision staff report was released to City Council and the public later that day.
This will certainly be a topic of discussion over the next few weeks leading up to a council debate, but it will be worth a post of its own after I have had a chance to hear reactions directly from residents.
If you have thoughts about inclusion in Waterloo, whether in Northdale or anywhere else in our community, please let me know through the feedback form. In particular, I would ask that you think of and describe one action we could take individually or together to address the particular issue you raise.
I look forward to hearing from you.