Are you interested in strengthening emergency preparedness and connections between neighbours?

Become part of our unique pilot project!

“Connect and Prepare”

Call for Expressions of Interest

Together we are ready! We are looking for groups of neighbours living on the same street or in the same apartment/condominium building within the City of Victoria to be part of an exciting new pilot project called “Connect and Prepare”. This project is being offered as part of a unique collaboration bringing together Building Resilient Neighbourhoods’ Resilient Streets program and Victoria Ready. Through a series of facilitated workshops, and with the support of micro-grants, program materials, and resource people, you and your neighbours will:

• learn about different kinds of potential emergencies
• participate in fun gatherings for socializing and discussing preparedness
• do assessments of your own homes, then create a street directory and asset inventory to help improve your individual and collective safety
• explore opportunities to become more connected and mutually supportive before, during and after emergencies
• receive several $50 micro-grants to help cover refreshments and other costs for hosting neighbours
• receive a $500 grant to build your street/building’s own customized, shared emergency supplies kit
• access $200 grants to launch any other “Resilient Streets” projects such as place making, group purchasing, tool sharing, and more.

Connect and Prepare is based on the understanding that building social connections between neighbours is a critical foundation for becoming better prepared and resilient to different types of challenges, stresses and emergencies that may come our way either suddenly or gradually over time. This pilot program involves 3 two-hour sessions that will run between December of 2017 and March of 2018 (schedule to be developed based on the availability of you and your neighbours.) Interested? We’ll be selecting three locations for pilot projects.

Sorry! Applications are now closed.

Deadline for expressions of interest: Thursday December 7th, 2017

Note that this call is open only to City of Victoria neighbourhoods at this time, but if you live elsewhere, stay tuned as we’ll be harvesting the learnings from the pilot to create a new module in the Resilient Streets Toolkit that will be available to other communities. We’re also hoping to deliver this program in other communities and neighbourhoods in the future, so if you are interested in being part of this, please contact us!