Building hope through action
Connect & Prepare program featured in report by Public Health Agency of Canada and BC Centre for Disease Control.
Many communities in BC have experienced the effects of climate change. Sharing stories of impact, successes and lessons is one of the best tools we have to help each other understand how to support action.
The new ‘Building Hope through Action Report’ from The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) summarizes the experiences of ten BC communities in responding to their identified climate change priorities. Through these stories, the report aims to encourage ongoing conversations about local collaborative actions to increase climate change resilience and adaptation, and to illustrate the diverse ways and scales that public health can offer support. The report is a follow-up to the Roundtable on Climate Change and Health (PDF) dialogue with Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, which was held on November 7th, 2022.
Building Resilient Neighbourhood’s Connect & Prepare (C&P) program was selected as one of the featured projects in the report. C&P brings groups of neighbours together to meet each other and learn about resilience to acute emergencies and long-term, chronic stressors through “Connect & Prepare” workshops. The neighbours identify their shared assets and vulnerabilities and then collaborate in launching practical projects to strengthen what — and who — is in their emergency toolkit.
Through a dynamic and ongoing partnership between Building Resilient Neighbours and Hey Neighbour Collective, Connect & Prepare has scaled over the last year to support resilience building in communities across North Vancouver, Vancouver – Mount Pleasant, and New Westminster.
Read the Building Hope through Action report (PDF) and explore how communities across BC are responding to climate change and paving the way for impactful action.
A version of this article was first published at Hey Neighbour Collective.