Community Building. Community Enterprise. Workforce Development. These were the themes at the heart of Econous 2016, the national Community Economic Development Conference, which I attended in Montreal in May.
You may be wondering about the place of community economic development in literacy work. In the NWT where many communities lack jobs for young people, we can’t separate economic development and workforce development. One of our main interests was to look at workforce development through the lens of social enterprises that involve youth. This stream of workshops included sessions on working with unions, venture philanthropy, improving youth participation in the labour force through research, and fostering sustainable livelihoods.
Speakers talked about innovative projects that removed barriers to work for at-risk populations, strengthened organizational capacity, and increased professional involvement in community-based organizations. Many projects were geared towards poverty reduction.
This conference gave me much food for thought in terms of creating services for at-risk youth, through our Skill Builders for Youth program. Skill Builders for Youth, funded by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, is designed to re-engage youth in learning by embedding literacy and essential skills into innovative community-based projects. Smaller communities may benefit from a social enterprise, which would allow youth to use the skills they learn in the skill builders program in an income-generating business. Wouldn’t that be exciting for some of our communities?
In the current economic climate, non-government organizations, like the NWT Literacy Council, need to broaden our thinking beyond the way we have worked in the past. We need to capitalize on the ever-changing slate of funding possibilities to be vibrant organizations better able to serve the people we work with.
To learn more about community economic development you can check out websites related to some of the conference’s interesting keynote speakers, such as Rankin McSween of New Dawn Enterprises, and Carol Anne Hilton, professor of Indigenomics at Simon Fraser University.
-- Kathryn Barry Paddock
